A Perfectly Flawless Plan
by Lostinthought92
Summary: Usagi and Mamoru are in denial, rather the two are a bit too stubborn for their in good. Who's to help them? Motoki has a plan and with the help of Makoto puts it in action. The question is how will Motoki's "Perfectly Flawless Plan" really work out?
1. Plotting

**A/N:** Konitchiwa!

This is my first Sailor moon fic, I've posted, so I really hope you all like it.

The story is mostly going to feature Mamoru, Usagi, Motoki, and Makoto. The story is based on the Manga, meaning Mamoru isn't in college yet, he's still in high-school. Usagi and Mamoru don't know each others identities yet.

The characterizations are based on Manga as well, so that's basically it.

Enjoy the story!

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The crown arcade was filled with the usual chatter, laughter and soft pings of arcade games. Motoki had already wiped down all the booths and counter, and was now chatting amicably with 15 year old Makoto Kino.

"Hai! It's so beautiful!" Makoto said, excitedly.

"I'm sure it is," Motoki replied, "What's it called?"

"It's a White nun orchid," Makoto replied. "It's the national flower of-"

However before Makoto could tell Motoki just what nation the flower was from, there was sudden thundering noise coming from the other side of the counter, where only two people could possibly sitting.

"Baka!" Usagi yelled, shaking her fist at him.

"Baka, me?!" Mamoru yelled back, highly affronted, "It's not my fault your grades are so low!"

"Well excuse me! I didn't realize an 85 was low for you!" Usagi shot back. "'Mr. I go to an awesome private school'" she said, in a rather mocking tone.

Mamoru's eyes widened, "are you mocking me?" he asked, incredulously.

"So what if I am?" she said, glaring at him.

"No one mocks me!" he declared.

"Well I think I just did!" Usagi replied.

Mamoru gave the young junior high student a deathly glare. "And I think you're a little out of your mind!" he said.

"I'm out of my mind?!" Usagi let out a screech before yelling out another insult, to which Mamoru responded with a rather snide remark. Their yelling increased, with nearly every eye in the arcade glued to them, as they watched in amusement as the two stood nearly nose to nose in their screeching.

Motoki shook his head. Makoto did the same. "Always the same thing," Motoki said with a deep sigh, as he threw down his rag, getting ready to at least attempt to calm the two down.

"They need to honestly just stop with their denial," Makoto stated, rolling her eyes at the bickering duo.

"What?" Motoki asked, turning to look at the brunette.

Makoto blushed, "uhmm, nothing, I uh…didn't say anything," she said, giving him a rather fake smile.

Motoki gave her a look that plainly said he knew she was lying. He shook his head, "I agree with you, either way" he said.

Makoto stared at him. "You do?" she asked surprised. No one else seemed to agree with her, not even Minako who saw romance everywhere.

Motoki nodded, "these two have been like this since last year, they need to get out of this phase of denial."

"Yeah well it'll take a miracle to do that," Makoto said, taking a sip of her water. "Either that or something that'll get'em grossly jealous so they'll realize the feelings they have for each other."

Motoki's eyes widened, as a sudden idea came to mind. He turned back to Makoto, who was calmly sipping her water.

"Makoto-chan," he said. Makoto glanced up at him.

"You okay?" she asked, perplexed by the strange look on his face.

Motoki nodded, and slowly gave Makoto a lopsided grin, and easily ignored the still growing noise coming from his two friends. "I just got a brilliant idea."

"About?" Makoto prompted.

"How we can get these two to stop being stubborn, and get'em together!" he whispered, rather excitedly. "Of course I'll need your help for it to work."

Makoto stared at him, before grinning, "tell me more," she said, and leaned forward as he hurriedly explained in the briefest of outlines his well formed plan.

"It's a perfectly flawless plan!" he declared, with a rather firm nod.

Makoto laughed. "What?" he asked.

"Well sorry to burst your bubble Motoki-san, but umm, there's a lot of possible flaws in the plan."

"huh? Where?"

"Well it's not exactly guaranteed that they'll rise and take that bait, I mean, maybe Mamoru-san won't care about what anyone thinks about Usagi-chan." Makoto explained.

"That's the beauty of it, it won't be just 'anyone'. It'll be me testing Mamoru, and you testing Usagi-chan."

Makoto contemplated the idea for a moment. "Alright, I'll do it," she said. "But right now I gotta go," she said as she slid off of the stool, and slid her cash across the table to Motoki, he slid it back.

"Don't worry about it," he said, as he threw her glass of water and dirty plate into the sink under the counter. Makoto blushed slightly.

"I'll come by tomorrow, we'll figure out the details then," she said.

Motoki nodded, "just make sure to get here early, before Mamoru-kun comes by." She gave a quick nod, and with a final wave hurried out of the arcade. Motoki watched the pretty brunet leave, before snapping his attention to his two bickering friends.

He took a deep breathe before striding toward them. And smacked the rag he used to clean the counter against the back of Mamoru's head and pulled Usagi's half eaten chocolate cake away from her.

"HEY!" They both cried out in unison, turning to look at Motoki.

"That hurt!" Mamoru said, rubbing his head.

"My cake!" Usagi cried.

"You two need to keep yourselves quiet!" he responded to them both, before sliding the chocolate cake back to Usagi, and gave Mamoru another smack with the rag.

"Ow!" Mamoru cried, giving Motoki a rather dark look.

"I think you're going to need a shower," Motoki calmly stated. "I used this rag to clean up the orange soda some kid spilled before."

"Motoki-kun," Mamoru said, through clenched teeth.

Motoki gave his best friend a rather innocent look. "I just remembered!" he replied defensively.

"Right," Mamoru said, in a tone that clearly indicated he believed nothing that came from his best friends mouth. "you wait, I'll tell Unazuki who ripped that stuffed animal her boyfriend got her," he said threateningly. Motoki paled slightly.

"Let's not do anything hasty, now Mamoru-kun," Motoki said, giving him a complacent smile.

Mamoru gave him a dirty look before getting to his feet, and heading out the door, muttering a number of things that Motoki was sure wasn't suitable for any child to hear.

Usagi had watched the whole exchange, and let out a giggle, as soon as Mamoru had exited. "You, have so much on him."

"Oh, you have no idea, Usagi-chan," he said with a laugh, as he quickly grabbed her clean plate and stuck it in the sink.

"Well I have to go meet the girls, I'll see you Motoki-onii-san!" Usagi said, as she ran out the door.

Motoki gave her a final wave, and turned to wipe down the counter he had before left sparkling clean, until that is Usagi and Mamoru had arrived and wreaked havoc on his clean counter. "Well after tomorrow, I won't have to deal with any of this anymore," he said to himself.

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**A/N:** Short chapter I know, my first chapters usually are.

I'm already working on the next chapter, so it'll be up really soon!

I'm sorry for any errors, but I don't have beta reader, my usual beta is really busy, so I kinda need to find one, if anyone would like to give me a recommendation or would like to do it, I'd really appreciate it!

One last thing, for this overly long author's note, please leave a review, it can be a flame, just a little thing to know what you thought.

Thanks!!!


	2. Afternoon at the arcade

**A/N:** New Chapter! I'm updating as best I can, I've had a ton of finals this week. Honestly why do so many teachers insist on having tests the last week of school? Anyway due to studying so much for math, I had to put the story on the back burner, but here's the update!

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon, sadly, just a fan. So don't sue me, I have nothing you can have anyway!

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Makoto hurried into the arcade, and immediately saw the sandy haired arcade manager, chatting nicely with two nine year old boys. She approached them, and stood silently, as Motoki told the two boys how to beat the 7th level of the new Megaman game currently resting on the other side of the arcade.

"So all you have to do is make sure and use Ryu's fireball against the armored armadillo, it's the strongest attack, that'll get you past 7 to 8 and if you get a high enough score you can get a power-up." Motoki said, as the boys stared at him, hanging onto every word the 17 year-old uttered.

"Got it?" he asked.

"GOT IT!" the cried in unison, and ran past Makoto and nearly tripped over each-other in their haste to get to the machine.

"Wow, you sound really intelligent, talking about video games," Makoto said lightly. Motoki arched an eyebrow, giving her a rather challenging look.

"Is that supposed to be an insult against my intelligence?" Motoki asked. Makoto blushed, and quickly shook her head; she would never insult Motoki like that.

Motoki laughed, "Kidding," was all he said. "So did you bring your stuff?" he asked.

"Stuff?"

"Yeah, stuff, you know your school-work?"

"Oh, right" Makoto said, sliding into a stool, and lugging her school bag onto the counter. "Now can you please explain why I needed to lug this around on a Saturday?" she asked.

"Well, you did say, you were having issues with physics right?" Motoki said. "So I thought we should make it so we all benefit from this, not just the two lovebirds," he explained. He took hold of her bag, and began to sift through it, Makoto watched, taken aback as the upperclassman looked through her bag, and quietly thanked the lord that she had removed a few of her feminine items this morning.

Motoki finally extracted from the bag a rather thick textbook, and waved it victoriously over his head. Makoto glared at the offending book, "I swear that there, is the root of all evil!"

Motoki let out a chuckle, "aw come on, physics isn't all that bad."

"So you say, you finished it already!"

"No, well yeah I finished it, but I did like physics, it was interesting." Motoki said, opening the textbook.

"Yeah well I'm more of a home economics type of person," Makoto said, glaring sulkily at the book in his hands.

"Well all the better," Motoki said, a small smile playing on his face.

Makoto stared at him, "you should know by now, I usually have no idea what goes on in your head when you get that look on your face," Makoto said. "I just know that it's…creative."

"Well that's a step up from my best friend," Motoki said. Makoto was floored, she didn't know what he meant by that, but somehow felt a bit flattered.

She quickly shook off the feeling. "So what exactly do you think is so great about my hate of physics?"

"Well Mamoru-kun loves physics, more-so than I ever did." Motoki said. "So I'm sure he'll be a lot more willing to help you out, and tutor you about physics, especially with your exams coming up, you could probably get him to tutor you in other things too."

"Wow, sounds like fun," Makoto said, dryly, "studying with Mamoru-san. Explain to me exactly how this fits into the plan."

"Usagi just needs to see you getting help from him, and needs to hear about this and more from you. While I try to do something along those same lines to Mamoru-kun." Motoki said. "And well you know the rest," he said with a wave of his hand.

Makoto let out a sigh, "What?" he asked.

"Nothing, it just…it seems to simple to work, is all."

"Makoto-chan! It'll be anything but simple! With two stubborn people like that, we'll have to drill it at them and ham everything we say and do up! It's going to take a lot of work, dedication and acting on both our parts, so we can map things out for them to follow!" Motoki cried.

Makoto stared at him, a bit surprised at this rather strange outburst. "okay," was all she said, and quickly followed it with a question on any suggestions possible to what should be done with Mamoru.

"One thing really," he paused, took a deep breathe and said, "NO! and I mean absolutely NO FLIRTING!"

Makoto winced at the pitch of his voice, "got it," she said, through clenched teeth. The thought of flirting with Mamoru was very unappealing to her. She let out a rather disgusted sound.

"Not many times I hear that when girls think about flirting with Mamoru-kun," he said with a smile.

"Well I'm not a normal girl, am I?" she replied.

Motoki smiled widely. "Too right you are," he said, not noticing the faint blush that was spreading on her face. "you'd better start, he'll be coming in about 10 minutes." And with one last grin, Motoki was called away by the sound of a sudden crash coming from one of the booths, that clearly meant an accident occurred.

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Right on cue at twelve o'clock, Mamoru entered the arcade, this time clad in the most basic of outfits, rather than the stiff uniform he had to wear to school. He made his way to the counter, where he saw his best friend pooled over a book, and talking to a tall brunette. As he neared the two, Motoki glanced up at him.

"Mamoru-kun!" he said and waved him over. Mamoru slowly made his way over to them.

He immediately recognized the brunette as one of Usagi's : or better known as Odango Atama's friends.

The girl gave him a brief smile, quite a surprise to Mamoru, who expected the girl to be either as annoying as Usagi or rather just plain mean to him.

She turned back, disgruntled, to her book, as Motoki poured Mamoru his usual cup of coffee. Motoki then turned to give the girl a rather concerned look. Mamoru watched their exchange of words rather detachedly, thinking about the last passage he had had to read from his psychology book that spoke about body language.

Mamoru sat quietly, immersed in his cup of coffee, pondering the many meanings of movement. However he was soon snapped out of his reverie by two pairs of green eyes.

"Umm…Yes?" he said, somewhat unsure. Had they asked him something?

"Great!" Motoki said, his eyes twinkling. "You see Makoto-chan, Mamoru's not all bad." Which immediately sent the brunette into a flaming blush.

"I never said, he was bad," she mumbled. "I…I just thought he would be busy with other things."

"Please, Mamoru had little else to do, right Mamoru?" he said turning to look at his best friend, who was giving him a deathly glare.

"You never know, Motoki, I could have gotten a girlfriend and not told you, as you're such a horrible nest friend," Mamoru responded. Knowing his friend would get annoyed at the comment.

"Honestly, Mamoru, I could probably pick out your next girlfriend before you could," Motoki said, before walking off to serve his other customers, leaving Mamoru a bit annoyed and Makoto trying to hide her laughter.

Makoto quickly hid her laughter by making a rather big show of shifting her books closer to Mamoru. He stared at her quizzically before it dawned on him what had just happened.

He'd accidentally agreed to tutor the girl, in what he wasn't sure, but after stealing a glance at the book saw it was physics.

"You're having issues with physics?" he asked. She nodded, blushing slightly.

"I'm just no good with all these formulas, and all this wording is really throwing me off," she explained, pointing to the problem she was currently trying to work on.

Mamoru pulled the book closer, to read the problem and then pulled the sheet she'd been doing work on, he stared aghast at the magnitude of incorrect work, and ink blots that covered the page. "Well…you, uh managed…to start off the problem correctly with the uh…conversions," he managed to say, trying not to hurt her feelings by telling her she had nearly single-handedly destroyed the pristine sheet of paper that could have sufficiently answered the rather simple physics problem.

"Probably, the only thing I got right," she muttered. Mamoru gave her a sheepish smile, before taking a separate sheet of paper, to begin outlining the basics of the problem. Makoto listened attentively.

They spent the better part of 45 minutes working steadily, until they were interrupted by a rather high-pitched voice. "Moshi Moshi Mamoru-san!

Makoto watched as Mamoru seemed to cringe slightly, his hand tightened over the pen in his hand. He sat rigidly, as though trying to disappear or become invisible, she stole a quick peek over Mamoru's shoulder and was greeted with a rather unusual sight, that made her blush deeply.

Standing on the other side of Mamoru was a girl with rather short, curly, wood colored hair and pink eyes, with a rather wide flirtatious smile etched on her face.

Aside from the sickeningly large smile, she wore some rather tight clothing, that gave quite an eyeful to any passerby. Makoto silently wondered if the girl had any clue as to how horrible she looked in the clothes, that looked as though they were made for a nine year-old, not a seventeen year-old.

"Oh Mamoru-san, I didn't expect to find you here on a Saturday," she said, leaning towards him a bit.

Mamoru felt himself back away from the girl, and lean in Makoto's general direction. "uhmmm….Mamoru-san?" Makoto said, trying to quietly gain his attention to the fact that he was crowding her personal space.

"Ah, gomen," he said, as he attempted to straighten himself.

"So what are you doing here?" the girl asked, eyeing Makoto questioningly.

"I was just helping Makoto-chan here, with her physics," Mamoru replied tersely, as he peered down at his empty coffee cup.

The girl stared down at Makoto, "oho, you're a little junior high school student aren't you?" she paused, and her eyes raked over Makoto, before continuing, "well maybe not little, more like giant." Makoto felt her cheeks burn, and her anger flare.

Mamoru sat obliviously, attempting to get Motoki's attention. He desperately needed a refill on his coffee, however Motoki was on the opposite side of the arcade taking orders from another group of kids, and Unazuki was busy keeping a bunch of kids from swarming the broken change machine.

"Motoki-kun!" he called.

Motoki finally glanced over at him, his body tensed as he took in the sight of the tightly dressed girl leaning over Mamoru. His eyes narrowed dangerously, and he pointedly turned away from his friend.

"Furuhata!" Mamoru called again, before sighing resignedly and getting to his feet. "I swear that guy is deaf," he muttered as he quickly excused himself from the two girls.

The pink-eyed girl changed her posture considerably once Mamoru left. She sat in his vacant seat. "So, you're getting some extra help from Mamoru-san?" she asked sweetly.

Makoto glared at the girl before answering tersely, "yes, he's been very instructive."

"I'm sure," the girl replied, with a smile. Makoto stared rather disgustedly at the girl. "So how tall are you?" she asked.

'Tall enough," Makoto replied shortly.

"You're quite the Amazon," the girl said, ignoring the hostility in Makoto's voice. "I'm surprised you've ever had a boyfriend, I don't know what type of guy could stand to be around someone as tall as you, without being intimidated." She let out a sigh, "I suppose it is a good thing my genes are on the shorter side."

"That's probably the only thing you have going for you," Makoto said, "as your sense in fashion is off by about eight years. Where do you buy your clothes, Carters?"

"Excuse me?" she asked clearly affronted.

"I'm sorry do you have a hearing problem? You should have said so, I would have written it out for you…unless you don't have the capability to read above a nine-year old reading level, or are you on the same level as that of your idea of fashion?"

The girl stared at her somewhat impressed. "Actually I get my stuff at a trendy boutique, I'm not going to bother asking you where you got yours, thrift shop?"

Makoto glared at the girl, "At least, I'm well covered, you seem to leave nothing to the imagination."

"Well, my sense in style seems to work for a lot of people, I'm sure Mamoru-san prefers my way of dressing to yours."

Makoto let out a sound of disgust, "Ugh, I doubt any respectable guy would give you a second look, and yes I count Mamoru-san as one of the respectable ones." She gave the girl a rather glowering look.

The girl smirked, "you've got a lot to learn, if you think that way."

Motoki suddenly appeared behind the counter and gave the girl a deathly glare. "Raku-san," he said rather coldly.

"Motoki-chan!" she squealed, and attempted to give him a hug, Motoki shrugged away from her. Raku stared at him, a bit miffed. "Aw, come on Motoki-chan, give me a hug, I haven't talked to you in the longest time."

"Wasn't it great?" he asked, Makoto was able to pick out his icy tone immedietly.

"Not really, I missed you," Raku cooed, as she allowed her hand to wander to his sandy blond hair, Motoki pushed her hand away impatiently.

Makoto averted her eyes, "I have to go," she said, and quickly grabbed her textbook and bag, and hurried out of the arcade, ignoring Motoki's call.

"Makoto-chan!" he called to her retreating figure.

"awww, doing some cradle-robbing?" Raku asked, maliciously.

Motoki glanced back at her, "What are you talking about?" he snapped.

Raku laughed, "Don't think I don't see the way you looked at her, how old is she? 14?"

"15," he said through gritted teeth, "and I'd appreciate it if you STAYED AWAY FROM HERE AND ME!"

Raku didn't flinch at the tone of his voice, rather turned away from him. "I'm waiting for Mamrou-san."

"He already left, avoiding you, if truth be told," he said, none to kindly.

Raku's eyes narrowed. Before she shrugged, "I'll figure something out," she said before getting to her feet, and blew Motoki a kiss. His response being only a dark glare.

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**A/N:** arghh I know it dragged on a bit, but this is just the beginning, and I need to set up the major plot points. Yes I know Usagi was missing from this chapter, but she'll be in the next one, Promise!

I'm working on it as we speak, and in that chapter, we'll see more action in Motoki's 'plan' Hopefully you all liked this chapter at least somewhat, so I ask on favor, leave a review please!

Thanks


	3. Damage control

**A/N:** Surprise! An update!

Actually as it happens, I won't have to take my Math B regent, soooooo I had free time to write! YAY!

And I'd like to thank all of you who reviewed, you have no idea how excited I was when you reviewed! So thanks a lot, and thanks for putting the story on your story alert list too!

Anyway here's my newest chapter, I hope you like it.

Oooo and one last thing, it seems the chapter breaks I put in haven't been shown, so it might have been confusing to read the first two chapters, I'll see if I can get that fixed, hopefully the chapter breaks will come out in this one, if not I'm sorry!

Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon, sadly. 

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"Akuryou Tisane!" Sailor mars yelled, throwing her Ofudo scroll at the youma, surrounding it in red flames. However the youma merely reared back it's head and quickly jumped, and dodged it.

Mars gasped, no youma had ever been able to do that. "Flower Hurricane!" Jupiter roared, and shot pink and green blossoms from her palms. The youma screeched as the blossoms hit him, but quickly let out a breathe of ice, that froze the blossoms in mid-air, and they quickly fell to the ground.

"Shabon Spray!" Sailor Mercury cried, eliciting a wide amount of fog, that quickly froze the youma.

"Venus Love Me Chain!" Venus yelled, throwing the golden chain at the youma, and attempting to take it down. However as the chain circled the youma, it pulled and sent Sailor Venus flying, and landing with a thud a few feet away.

"Venus!" Sailor Moon cried, and she ran towards her, but was intercepted by a quick swish of the youma's tail. The tail flew back and smacked the Senshi of the Moon, she let out a shriek of pain, and felt herself fly. She closed her eyes hoping the landing wouldn't be all that painful.

However no pain ever came, she peeked open her eyes and found herself still in the air, surrounded in warmth. She felt a pair of arms tighten around her, and looked up at a pair of sapphire blue eyes. She felt her breathe escape, the blue eyes widened in worry. Suddenly Sailor Moon found herself standing upright on her own two feet. She stared wide eyed at the youth that stood opposite her clad in an all black tuxedo and a top hat.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

She nodded, trying to find her voice. Suddenly he pushed her, and she fell with a rather loud thud, and a harsh pain in her leg. "arghh," she groaned.

And heard a loud swoosh, and a gust of wind that fell over her.

"Sailor Moon!" Luna called, as she ran toward the fallen Senshi. "Are you alright?"

Sailor Moon nodded, before jumping to her feet. The youma had thrown a strain of hail out of its mouth, leaving a thick sheet of ice where she had previously been standing. "I end this now," she whispered.

Sailor Mars again through the jet of flames at the Youma, followed again by Jupiter's attack of blossoms, slowing it down. Sailor Moon took hold of her tiara, and let it fly while yelling "Moon Twilight Flash!"

A flash of light flew across the sky as the youma let out a shriek of pain and exploded, leaving nothing behind but a pile of dust.

"Finally got it, Sailor Moon?" Sailor Mars asked, as she landed lightly before her.

"Shut up Mars," she stated, not really in the mood for her friends snide comments. She closed her eyes and took a deep breathe.

"You okay?" Mercury asked, looking at her leader concernedly.

"Of course," Sailor Moon replied, brightening instantly, and flashing them a grin.

"You're not hurt?" Jupiter asked, staring at the large bruise on her leg.

She shook her head, "I'll survive," she turned to Venus, "the question is, are you alright, Princess?" she asked.

Venus' eyes widened slightly, before nodding quickly. "Of course, don't worry about me."

"She's right we should have protected you better," Mars said, regretfully.

Venus shook her head, "hey, don't worry I'm fine, aren't I?" she said with a smile. "Let's just forget about this, besides it was my fault. I should've known better."

"You really should be more careful princess," Luna said, reproachfully.

Venus blushed slightly, and began to sweat slightly. "Well I think that's all," Artemis cut in, slightly flustered. "We should all talk again later," he suggested and nudged Venus' leg, and together the two bounded out of sight.

Makoto stared after them. "Do you ever get the feeling they're hiding something?" she asked.

Mars stared at her, before quickly shaking her head. "Don't say such nonsense," she said. "I'll see you all later," she said, and left.

"What's up with her?" Sailor Moon asked, "she's been acting so moody these days."

Jupiter and Mercury shrugged. "We should probably get going, there will be a lot of questions when civilians start coming out again." Jupiter nodded, and both girls ran out of the compound, while Sailor Moon merely gazed up at the buildings, wondering where Tuxedo Kamen had flown to. She recalled the feel of his arms wrapped protectively around her. She blushed, and quickly shook her head, casting out the thoughts, as Mercury and Jupiter called out to her.

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Usagi stared at the rumpled test in her hands, that had a large red 78 drawn crudely across the top. She let out a long sigh, this wasn't a grade she was all that proud of, but math had always been her weakness. She strolled listlessly in the general direction of her home, trying to picture her mother's reaction. Sure it wasn't the 38 she had gotten last year, but it wasn't the 99 Umino had managed to obtain either.

"Usagi-chan, don't feel bad, you just didn't study enough for it," Ami consoled.

"It's not even that Ami-chan, I didn't understand anything Haruna-sensei said about limits," Usagi said, with a heavy sigh.

"Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped you!" Ami said, looking at her friends slouching form.

"How could I Ami-chan? You needed to study yourself, _and_ you had cram school!" Usagi explained.

Ami remained silent, it was true that she had been studying a lot and had gone to cram school every day, but that didn't mean she couldn't help Usagi with her school work, Ami wanted to have time to be with her friends.

"But when I studied by myself, I could have helped you study at the same time," Ami said. "I can tutor you too," she said getting an idea. "I could help you with your math and your English."

Usagi stared at the blue-haired girl next to her, "Really Ami-chan?" she asked her eyes shining in happiness. Ami nodded, and blushed sheepishly at how happy Usagi had become.

"Let's go now! We can go to my house, Mama won't be so mad when she finds out your helping me now!" and Usagi grabbed Ami's hand and ran pulling the girl after her.

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Makoto arrived at the arcade promptly at 4 o'clock, she entered it and took a quick peek around, hoping to avoid the woodie. Woodie being the name Makoto had dubbed the girl who had come on Saturday dressed like a nine year old.

"Makoto-chan!" Motoki called, giving her a wave. Makoto smiled slightly and walked towards him.

"Study session?" he asked.

"Yup, hopefully this time, I may get some insight and talk in with Mamoru-san on Usagi-chan." She said.

"Actually I've done a bit of work on that today, while we were in school," Motoki said.

"Really?"

Motoki nodded and launched into a description of the history class he shared with Mamoru, in which he spoke quite eloquently on the matter of the perfect girl.

"And how did he describe his 'perfect girl'?" Makoto asked.

"Well he didn't want to answer and went on to tell me that I was wasting time, talking about 'nonsense.' " Motoki said. "But, I told him what his 'perfect girl' was like."

"And?"

"I basically described Usagi-chan, and he kind of stared at me, I think I caught him off guard, it was pretty funny," he said with a laugh. Makoto laughed, just imagining Mamoru's expression, ah how she wished she could have been there to see it.

"What's so funny?" A voice asked behind them, and Makoto stopped mid-laugh to look at am inquiring Mamoru Chiba.

"uhhhhh," Makoto began.

"Oh, I was just telling Makoto-chan about gym class," Motoki said smoothly. Mamoru chuckled.

"It's not a nice thing to laugh about," he said.

"What's not funny about watching Raku-san fall when her teammate gave her the baton?" Motoki asked, with an eye roll.

Mamoru snorted, but tried not to laugh. "It's just mean, I'm sure she felt embarrassed about it."

"Like I should care," Motoki replied. Before turning around and heading over to the booths, to serve his new customers.

Makoto turned to Mamoru, slightly wide-eyed, "she actually fell? During a relay race?" she asked, astounded.

Mamoru nodded, biting his lower lip in an attempt to keep from laughing, as he did in school.

Makoto however did no such thing, and laughed, rather loudly. Mamoru merely shook his head, and asked her about her work.

Makot answered sullenly, "Hai, Haruna-sensei gave me a ton of physics work today." She pulled out the textbook, and her notebook, and opened to her page of problems. Mamoru took the book and read them.

"Hmmmm, these are tricky, what with having to use the wave structure, and the conversions of matter and energy," Mamoru said, as wrote out the problem, and began underlining the important aspects of it.

Makoto however gave him little attention as she heard the arcade doors open, and heard the small welcome Motoki called, "USAGI-CHAN!"

Makoto paled, and turned to look at Mamoru, however he was happily immersed in the problem. How exactly was she going to make this work, she hadn't really done enough brown-nosing to instigate any sort of conversation between the two that wouldn't end up with the two fighting. She had two options, one being that she call Usagi and Ami over to talk, or ignore them and hope that they didn't notice her, or whom she was currently sitting with. Makoto chose the latter and hunched over the book, quickly asked Mamoru a question on the structure of a solid.

He stared at her aghast, and quickly answered her.

"Oh, right, sorry, I think I just had a brain lapse," Makoto said sheepishly.

Mamoru began to answer her but was cut off by the sound of Usagi's voice calling out to Makoto.

"Makoto-chan!" Usagi called, as she hurried over with Ami in tow. However she stopped short when she saw who Makoto was sitting with, as did Ami.

"Makoto-chan?" Ami asked uncertainly.

"Hai," Makoto said, giving them a rather fake cheery smile, wondering how in the world she would explain her sitting with Mamoru.

"Don't bother Makoto-chan, Mamoru-san!" Usagi commanded taking control of the situation.

"Excuse me?" Mamoru asked taken aback.

"You heard me, it's bad enough you bother me, don't go around bothering my friends as well," Usagi said, giving him a look that clearly questioned his intellect.

"I'm not bothering anyone, Odango Atama, you're the one going around bothering people," Mamoru stated, with a smirk.

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" Usagi yelled. "My name is USAGI! USAGI!"

"Odango Atama! Odango Atama!" Mamoru chanted.

"Arghhhh! Baka! Go away!" Usagi yelled, glaring at him. "Don't you have anything better to do than bother me?"

"Don't flatter yourself, Odango Atama, I'm busy helping Makoto-chan, so why don't you go away!" Mamoru answered.

The expression on Usagi's face flickered from anger, hurt and then to confusion. "Helping?"

"Hai, I'm tutoring Makoto-chan with her physics, now if you're done being a nuisance, you can go!" Mamoru said, none to kindly, and waving his hand in her face.

Usagi glared at him, "Fine!" and she stomped away from them.

"Usagi-chan!" Makoto called, however Usagi had already exited the arcade.

"She'll be fine," Ami said, giving Makoto a pat, "she's just annoyed," she said, giving Mamoru a glance, he looked a tiny bit guilty of having made her run out. "I'll go see if she's alright, before she gets to Rei's."

Makoto nodded knowing how Usagi would be welcomed into the temple if she went annoyed and sad. Ami left with a wave and headed in the direction of the Hikawa temple.

Makoto let out a deep breathe. "You shouldn't have told her that," she said quietly to Mamoru. "and she shouldn't have yelled at you," she said before Mamoru could get all defensive.

"Real nice Mamoru," Motoki said, coming over. "Honestly, I've never seen her happier," he said.

"What? She was the one who came barging in here, yelling at me not to be mean to Makoto-chan! When all I was doing was helping her!" Mamoru said, annoyed.

"Well after looking at the way you treat her, is it any surprise she thinks you're going around torturing her best friends?" Motoki replied.

"She's just paranoid! And she had no right to come in here and start yelling at me!" Mamoru stated.

"And you shouldn't have yelled at her and called her a nuisance!" Motoki said, "It was completely unnecessary!"

Mamoru opened his mouth to respond, but then closed it, sighing in defeat. "That's right, you'd better be feeling guilty!" Motoki said, arching an eyebrow at his best friend. "Now you go apologize," he commanded.

Mamoru glared at his sandy haired best friend and closed the textbook with a sigh of defeat. "We'll have to re-schedule Makoto-chan," he said, as he got to his feet and exited the arcade.

"Oh, my goodness!" Makoto whispered, staring at Mamoru's retreating form.

Motoki smiled, "never doubt the guilt trips a best friend can dish out," he said.

Makoto laughed, "That was good, I'm guessing this is the first step?"

Motoki nodded. "But we do have a…minor problem."

"What?"

"Raku-san," he said, rather distastefully.

Makoto grimaced, "what does _woodie_ want?"

"Woodie?" he asked, intrigued by the rather strange name.

Makoto nodded, "her hair, it's the same dull color as wood," she explained. "And I expect her personality is the same."

Motoki burst out laughing, "Kami! Makoto-chan, you are the best!" Makoto shrugged, but inwardly felt quite pleased with the compliment.

"Well if I am really the best, as you've said, I should go and see if I can do some damage control with Usagi and Ami," Makoto said, pulling her things together. She gave Motoki a small wave before exiting the arcade.

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Mamoru walked along the streets rather slowly, truth be told, he wasn't really looking forward to apologizing to the annoying blonde. Although he had to admit that calling her nuisance was bit mean.

He made his way steadily through the streets of Juuban, Tokyo until he neared his destination at the Hikawa temple. He neared the temple, and it looked quite deserted. He decided to go in anyway. He walked up the steps, and took a quick look around the grounds.

Perhaps inside, he thought to himself. He walked to the main doors and peeked in.

"Can I help you with something, sir?" A rather distant voice said. Mamoru turned quickly to find a raven-haired priestess staring at him rather coldly.

"Oh, Umm, I was looking for someone," Mamoru managed to say. He couldn't quite describe it, but he felt rather scrutinized by the girl.

"Well, we don't have any current visitors at the moment," She said, giving him a penetrating stare, her face expressionless.

There was a _Caw, Caw_, and two black ravens landed lightly on her shoulder. Mamoru stared at her, unsurprised, it seemed normal or familiar for the two ravens to land on the girl.

"You don't seem surprised," the girl commented, as she gently stroked one of the ravens.

"I'm not," he found himself saying.

"Oh?" she asked, a bit surprised.

He shook his head, "umm well if she's not here…"

"Who are you looking for?" the priestess asked. Staring directly at Mamoru, he took a quick step back. He felt as though he were being analyzed.

And indeed he was, as the priestess stared at him, she was testing his aura. _A good aura, no negativity whatsoever_, she thought. As she stared at him, a sudden image came out at her, a young blonde with rather long odango's and clear blue eyes.

The priestess smirked inwardly, so he was waiting for Usagi?

"She'll be here within moments, I'm sure of it," she said, with a slight smile.

"Wait, what?" he asked, utterly perplexed by her statement.

"The person you're waiting for will be here soon," she stated simply. "I suggest you wait a few minutes," she said.

Mamoru stood stock still wondering whether or not he'd follow the priestess' instructions.

Seconds later, footsteps were heard on the pavement of the steps, coming up, until Mamoru saw a pair of odango's peek over the top. He felt his mouth drop, and form an 'O', as he watched the blonde 15 year-old come to an abrupt stop with her blue-haired friend.

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Semi-cliffy, hehehe, how will the 'apology' go?

Actually I'm writing that out now, so the update should be soon!

Anyway I hope you liked it, and as always please leave me a review, a flame or anything is okay, but feedback would be better !


	4. Let the games begin

**A/N: **A new chapter for you guys, surprise!

I actually had a bit of an issue writing this chapter, I had some writers block after I wrote out the first part.

And after reading over the entire thing I decided it would be safer to change the rating to 'T' I think you'll see why after you read the chapter, but this is just a slight warning, it'll get a bit…catty. Yes catty, and I'm very sorry but it's Raku's fault!

Anyway here's the story!

Ooo quickly a few responses!

_**Celeste-Love – Ah thanks a lot for telling me about the Andrew/ Motoki mistake, I already went back and edited that. **_

_**KageNoNeko- Thanks for the review and maybe this chapter answered you're question.**_

_**SerenityMoonGodness- Thanks a lot for the reviews :) **_

_**mako-fan – Awww thanks so much, I'm really glad you liked it.**_

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_Mamoru stood stock still wondering whether or not he'd follow the priestess' instructions._

_Seconds later, footsteps were heard on the pavement of the steps, coming up, until Mamoru saw a pair of odango's peek over the top. He felt his mouth drop, and form an 'O', as he watched the blonde 15 year-old come to an abrupt stop with her blue-haired friend._

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"Mamoru-san?" Ami said, staring at the dark haired young man disbelievingly.

"Ami-chan! We should go wait for Makoto-chan and Minako-chan," the priestess stated, and firmly took hold of the surprised Blue-haired girl and marched down the steps, and out of sight.

Usagi stared at the young man standing opposite her, taking in his shocked expression. She let out a giggle.

"What?" he asked, shaking himself out of his shock

"You're face," Usagi managed to say through her laughter.

Mamoru mistook this as a rather bad insult, "well at least my face has a nice clean look to it, rather than the annoyingly blank look you always have on."

Usagi stopped mid-laugh and her expression turned from that of sweet humor to one of demonic anger. The glare she aimed at Mamoru would have most likely made any other quake in their shoes, however Mamoru merely matched her angry glare with one of his own.

"Is that what you think, or did somebody lie and tell you that?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"No one, has to lie to me. Unlike you I have a few good qualities that no one has to lie about," Mamoru said, icily.

"Well maybe it would be better if you went and talked to one of those people, because I can guarantee you won't get any such idea from me!" Usagi cried.

"Don't you think I'd rather do that?" Mamoru replied. "Unfortunately I was told I had to do something, by my supposed 'best friend.'"

"Oh and what did Motoki-san tell you, you had to do?" Usagi asked, annoyed and ready to get the stupid boy away from her.

Mamoru responded with one of the last things Usagi ever thought she would hear. "Apologize."

The simple word was greeted by silence. Usagi blinked. "Come again?"

"You heard me, alright."

"Yes, but it doesn't mean I believe you."

"Well I said it, so you might as well believe it."

"Hmmph, as if I would believe anything you said," Usagi said with a snort.

Mamoru glared at her, he'd never done a thing that warranted her to not believe him. He'd always been rather straight with the girl, told her when she looked messy, told her when she'd screwed up, told her how absolutely horrible she'd done on her exams, if anything she should believe him because he was so honest!

"Well you should, if you had any sort of intelligence you would," Mamoru declared.

"Don't bring my intellect into any of this! My thoughts have nothing to do with this!" Usagi replied. She had spent the better part of fifteen minutes angry and hurt at the remarks the bumbling, overly arrogant boy had made earlier. She had a great deal of anger and resentment that was really building up inside, and she was ready to let out a good few insults. This wasn't a time for the enemy to comment on her intelligence.

Mamoru stared at her amusedly, "really, Odango, you amaze me with the rather strange simplicity in your comments, your intellect has a lot to do with this! Because if you had any ounce of intelligence in that so called brain of yours, you would have believed me and all this could have been over and I'd be on my merry way!"

"No! This wouldn't be necessary if you weren't such an insensitive prick who needs his best friend to tell him when he did something wrong, because your moral compass is so off!"

Mamoru was shocked for a moment, unable to really comprehend that the long winded comment on_ his_ morality had come from the blonde airhead that trouble with writing kanji! Moreover he was having difficulties seeing how she could dare tell _him_ that he was lacking morality. He, the one who spent his nights up late, not studying, but chasing around after youmas in a tuxedo and top hat! The idea was completely absurd to him.

"I'm surprised you know the meaning of morality, Odango," he commented,

"You would be surprised at anything I do, baka!" She returned.

Mamoru glowered at the blonde, "exactly right, Odango, as there is no possible way for you to do a damn thing right!"

Usagi seethed, her face turning red, "Why are you here?" she thundered.

Mamoru let out a heavy sigh, "I already told you, I came to apologize."

Usagi took a rather regal stance, placing a hand at her hip, and pointing an accusing finger in his direction, "well you're doing a bang-up job of it!"

"Well, if you would stop the yelling, I would have done it already!" Mamoru retorted

Usagi let out a loud snort, "yeah right, the first thing you came and did was insult me!"

"That's not true! You insulted me first!" Mamoru replied, annoyed.

"No, you did!" Usagi countered.

"No, you did!" Mamoru cried.

"No you did!" Usagi yelled.

"You did!"

"You did!"

"You did!"

"You did!"

Both continued their cry, louder and louder, attempting to beat each other with the sheer force of their voice.

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Makoto turned the corner that would lead her to the steps of the Hikawa temple, and was surprised to see Rei, Ami, Minako, and the two cats standing idly in front.

She approached them cautiously, "what are you all doing standing around here?" she asked. She glanced at them all. Rei looked calm, while Ami looked a bit embarrassed, Minako puzzled and Luna and Artemis were simply cringing.

"We're waiting for Usagi-chan to finish her chat with Mamoru-san," Rei replied, serenely.

"He's still here?" Makoto asked, incredulously. Mamoru had left nearly ten minutes before she did.

"Hai, do you know why he wanted to talk to Usagi-chan?" Luna asked.

"Well he was supposed to apologize," Makoto began, but was interrupted by an explosion of voices.

"YOU DID!"

"YOU DID!"

The group cringed, feeling the slight stinging sensation in their ears from the loud reverberating sounds.

"I didn't realize, apologizing would be so loud," Minako said lightly.

Makoto smiled slightly at her humor.

"I think it's going rather well," Rei replied. Her companions ogled her.

"Well?" Ami gasped.

Rei shrugged, "all things considered."

"BAKA LEAVE!" they heard Usagi screech.

Artemis flinched, "wow has she got a voice!" Luna hit him with the back of her paw.

Minako shook her head slightly, at the felines antics. While Makoto inwardly cringed, this was not going according to plan at all!

The thundering voices came closer, as both were suddenly visible over the stairs, standing rather close and both their faces contorted into varying stages of rage.

"LEARN MANNERS!" Usagi yelled.

While Mamoru responded eloquently with, "I WILL WHEN YOU DO!"

"LEAVE!"

"I AM!" And Mamoru turned his back stiffly on the angry blonde and walked purposefully down the steps. He turned to the assembled group of wide-eyed girls. "I'll see you later Makoto chan," he said rather loudly. "Good bye ODANGO ATAMA'S poor friends," he yelled.

"YOUR APOLOGY IS NOT ACCEPTED!" Usagi screamed after his retreating form, causing him to pause and send a slightly comical pout and glare at her, before again turning and walking purposefully away from the shrine.

Usagi, in turn, also, took a purposeful stride into the temple, and let the door clang shut behind her, as she entered.

"This is not good," Makoto said.

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Motoki sat leisurely in his first period class, flipping through his notebook . His thoughts strayed to the previous day, in which he had gotten into a slight argument with Unazuki as well as the few choice words he and Raku had exchanged.

The memory floated in his mind throughout the lesson of subatomic particles , Raku's rather detached face telling him that Mamoru was about to become her newest conquest. As well as how her father thoroughly approved of the match. _Well her father has no clue she goes around like an immature little brat, flaunting her attributes to any passing person with eyes,_ he thought to himself.

He had always disliked Raku, even when they were younger, she had always been a bit too flirty, she was what he had always told Unazuki not to be. She was rather loud at times, obnoxious on a level beyond he ever knew existed. She was a real airhead, never listening, and only barely passing any of her subjects by finding some way to cheat on the finals each year. Sadly Motoki had found himself one of those she chose to cheat off of, as well as one of the few she had chased after and failed at attaining.

In short Raku was everything Motoki hated, embodied. He could easily make a list of all things he detested in a female and she would fit the description perfectly, however the most annoying thing had to be the fact that she always attempted to push her company on him even when it was an obvious fact that he wanted nothing to do with her.

Motoki had always disliked her, Mamoru however being Mamoru had turned a deaf ear to his best friends many complaints, only saying that as he had no experience with her he wouldn't say a word. In short Mamoru saw her as a misunderstood young woman.

Class ended abruptly for Motoki, due to the fact that he had paid hardly any attention to what his teacher had said. _Suppose Mamoru will let me borrow his notes_, he thought with a shrug.

He exited the class only to find himself face to face with the embodiment of all he hated.

"Motoki-chan!" she said with a smile.

"Raku-san," he returned, and he turned, deciding it best to take a different route to his English class.

"So, have you talked to Mamoru-san?" she asked.

Motoki shrugged. Raku's gaze hardened, "Motoki-chan, why are you trying to keep me away from your friend?"

Motoki didn't respond, refusing to look at her. "Just because you, feel protective of the guy, doesn't mean I can't hang out with him!"

Motoki snorted, "oh, my bad I didn't realize _you_ of all people could just hang out."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Whatever you think it means."

"Are you calling me a…a …harlot?" Raku asked, offended.

Motoki held no emotion in his voice, "Did I say that?"

"Either way, I don't care, I'm going to try things out with him, and if you don't like it. Tough!" Raku declared.

Motoki wanted to laugh, did the girl really think Mamoru was an easy guy?

"You know what, I'm not going to bother saying a thing anymore, I told you yesterday, he's not interested, nor ever be interested in someone like you. But you can go ahead and try, and I'll just watch you make a fool of yourself, as well as watch how well a few others chew you out for even trying anything like this," Motoki responded, briskly.

"I'm just giving you one fair warning, you try to hurt any of my friends in this little game of yours, you'll regret it," Motoki added.

"Are you threatening me?" Raku asked, shocked.

Motoki shook his head vigorously, "No, I'm just warning you if you do, you'll regret it. And it's not me who'll make you regret it."

Raku stopped confused, allowing Motoki to speed up his pace and enter his classroom without further interruptions.

"Doesn't matter," she said to herself, "Mamoru-san is one guy who's not about to slip past me."

_But if Motoki-chan thinks he can scare me off with rejection, he has another thing coming._ She thought silently, _he's probably trying to set him up with that weird Amazon girl I met before, but she won't get him. I'll make sure of that_. Raku paused in her thinking, reflecting on the fact that what she was about to enter was almost a competition between herself and the junior high school student. She smirked, entering her own class of geometry_. _

_Let the games begin._

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Usagi exited her classroom as the lunch bell rang. She hurried out the door, making her way to the grass where she met with Ami, and Makoto. She was exceptionally ravenous especially after the grueling morning where she found out she was stuck with Umino as her project partner while Ami and Naru worked together.

Reaching her destination, she quickly sat down and eagerly dove into her bento box, and began eating her lunch.

Ami and Makoto arrived moments later. Makoto plopped down with a sigh.

"I'm exhausted," she announced, stretching out.

"Me too," Usagi said, her mouth filled with food.

Ami merely shook her head, not understanding what was so bad about learning different formulas for solving triangles.

"I think Haruna-senshi made a mistake," Usagi said, as she polished off her last rice ball. "I don't see how she could have paired me with Umino and not Ami-chan or Makoto-chan!"

Ami glanced at the pouting girl incredulously. "Because she knew you and I would end up with a horrible project, and because she knows Ami-chan wouldn't force you to read those books on Mesopotamia," Makoto said.

"Well maybe," Usagi conceded. "But why Umino?"

"Aren't you good friends with Umino-kun?" Ami asked, puzzled.

"Hai, I've known him since we were four, but he's just…annoying sometimes," Usagi explained with a sigh. Usagi didn't dislike Umino, in all honesty he was like a brother to her, and like a brother he had the ability to drive her up the wall just like Shingo. Ever since they were in pre-school they had little arguments where Usagi would decide to do something only to be told by Umino how it would negatively affect her academic future.

"Well at least you're with someone who has a working brain, I'm stuck with Tyon-san, and we all know the only thing up there is a picture of Sailor Moon," Makoto said with an eye roll. Usagi blushed.

"I'm starting the project today with Naru-san," Ami stated calmly, being the only one satisfied with her partner.

"I have to start mine today as well," Usagi said, disparagingly. "Umino said it had to be done, so he said he'd get the books, but we have to meet at the arcade and go over everything together."

"Why the arcade?" Makoto asked. "I have to go to the library," she said with a frown.

"Because Umino knows I can't concentrate with silence," Usagi replied simply.

Makoto stared at her, rather surprised. How could someone not concentrate with silence?

It was as though Ami heard Makoto's question, as she answered it leisurely, "Usagi, loses concentration easier under silent conditions, and when there's noise, she finds herself relaxed and can concentrate easier."

Usagi listened, but merely shrugged and stared at Makoto's bento box. Makoto mechanically reached into the box and pulled out an extra bag of rice balls, and handed them to Usagi, who quickly plunged into it and devoured it.

"Mmmmm," Makoto listened silently as Ami went on to talk about how she would help Usagi with her math after dinner at her house.

"Do you want to come?" Ami asked, pulling Makoto back to the present.

Makoto shook her head, "oh, no, I have a ton of other work to do, and well Mamoru's supposed to help me with my work later."

Usagi let out a small snort, that she attempted to mask as a cough. It didn't go unnoticed by Makoto. She smirked inwardly, finally it was time to tell Usagi how Mamoru really was.

"What's funny?" she asked.

"I," Usagi began, but shook her head, "Iie, nothing.

"Tell me!"

"Mamoru-baka? How can you possibly learn anything from that arrogant air-head?" Usagi burst.

Makoto almost smiled, "Aw, Usagi he's not that bad. He's very nice."

"Hmph, yeah right."

"No really Usagi. He's very nice, I mean he took the time to really try and help me, and he's very understanding."

Usagi shook her head, "He's an arrogant, pig-headed, snobby, annoying baka. Who has no manners!" Usagi replied, passionately. The mere thought of what had occurred the previous day, was making her shake in anger.

"Usagi-chan! No, he's very nice, and he actually has very good manners…just very little," Makoto paused trying to find the proper word, and finally decided on, "tact."

Usagi rolled her eyes, and muttered rather lowly to herself, "yeah and no brain."

Ami let out a sigh, hoping it was the end of any discussion on Mamoru.

And indeed it was over, much to Makoto's displeasure

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**A/N:** So, what did you think? Was it horrible?

I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, I'm not exactly happy with it, so I'd really appreciate any feedback.

As to the part with Raku, well, it is what it is, I really don't know how to explain it. I feel as though it's missing something.

But yeah that's all, I'll update later on this week, and I'll definitely revise this chapter, with any feedback you guys can give.

Thanks for reading, :)


	5. Accidents

**A/N:** Hello, again :)

Now, I would have uploaded this chapter a lot earlier, but I was pretty busy with my training classes all week, so the story kind of took a backseat to all my other work. Anyway it's here, and it's a bit short, but I hope you all like it!

Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon, so don't sue me please!

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Mamoru had thus far spent his day as he would any other day and now found himself safely immersed in a strawberry shake, and a chat with his best friend.

"Really, I thought they would come at some point," Motoki said, with a shake of his head

"Yeah, I know, I was really disappointed when I heard they weren't coming here," Mamoru replied.

"Just because we're on the other side of the ocean," Motoki muttered, mutinously.

Mamoru smiled, of course Motoki would complain about not seeing his favorite band in concert, and all for the reason that they were in Japan, as Motoki loved to rant about.

"Stupid agents, don't realize how much money they'll make here," Motoki continued to mutter, as he scrubbed the counter with his infamous rag.

Mamoru rolled his eyes, "not that it's not entertaining to watch you talk to yourself about Creed's agents, but we have to get this thing started," Mamoru said, indicating to the pile of papers before him, that needed to be read for their presentation the next day.

Motoki grimaced, "ehh, how about you start, while I go get you a refill on your _FREE _shake."

Mamoru gave Motoki a rather dark look, as he grabbed the empty cup, and in whirl was gone.

Mamoru turned his attention to the pile of work set to him, he had to read through all the sheets, and pinpoint which would be useful for the presentation they had to make for their science class.

He heard the arcade doors open, and turned away from the sound, not wanting to be disturbed.

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Usagi walked down the street, laden with heavy books, however what she carried paled in comparison to the vast amount her partner was holding.

"Umino, why did you have to get so many books?" Usagi panted, as they entered the arcade.

"Well, we want all the information to be correct, and the only way to make sure is to cross reference everything," Umino explained, following her to the counter. They dropped their books with a thud.

Usagi sat down with a sigh. "Alright Usagi, You'll have to read this book," Umino said, handing her a large, heavy book with a fading green cover Usagi grimaced, but took the book.

"I'm hungry," she announced, after opening the book. "Let's have a snack."

Umino shrugged, and continued to read the book, while taking steady notes. Usagi let out a sigh, and waited impatiently for Motoki to come by and take her order.

Moments later he stood before her, with a cheery smile, and a notepad. "So what would you like?"

Usagi pondered the question for a moment, before deciding, "I'll have a chocolate milkshake, and French fries."

Motoki turned to Umino, who was nearly hidden behind his large stack of books, "And what about you?"

Umino glanced up at him, "umm, I'm okay."

Usagi shook her head, "no, he'll take a strawberry shake and a cheeseburger."

Umino's eyes widened. "Oh, no. you know I shouldn't have so much sugar Usagi!" Motoki stared, unsure about the order.

"It's okay, Motoki-onii-san, Umino'll eat it," Usagi assured. After Motoki left she turned and gave Umino a slightly glowering look. "Umino, I don't know what your mother said, but you are allowed to have sugar, especially now that we're stuck doing this icky project."

Umino spluttered his response, "but sugar's bad for you, it doesn't help and-"

"Umino! You're eating it!" Usagi declared, crossing her arms across her chest, and with a nod that clearly meant she would hear of nothing else.

Umino let out a sigh of defeat, but smiled a bit, as he settled back to his reading. He did enjoy the occasional amount of junk food, truth be told he really only had any junk food when he was with Usagi.

He watched Usagi out of the corner of his eye, making sure she was indeed reading the book, rather than just staring at it. To his surprise she was reading the book, usually he would have had to nearly tie the girl to a chair in order to make her read something other than manga.

They worked silently for a good ten minutes, until Motoki returned with their food, he placed it before them, gave them his signature smile, and left.

Usagi immediately dug into her food, while Umino gingerly closed his book and took a small sip of his milkshake, savoring the creamy drink.

"I told you, you'd eat it," Usagi said, through a mouthful of French fries.

Umino shrugged. "How did you know I liked the strawberry kind?" he asked.

"I didn't I just thought you might like it, since Naru-chan likes it, and well we all know how picky she is," Usagi explained.

Umino sighed, "Hai, I guess it's a good thing I didn't get to work with Naru-chan," he said, somewhat sourly.

Usagi glanced at him, and feigned offence, "and not work with me? I can't believe you like her so much more than me!"

Umino blushed a dark red, and shook his head, "o..o…of…course…not," he stuttered. And attempted to draw Usagi's attention away from his blushing, by grabbing her book. However, as he tried to grab the book, he slipped forward on his seat, and spilt the strawberry milkshake all over the book, Usagi's notes and his shirt.

"UMINO!" Usagi cried, as she tried to pull her notes off the counter. Umino sat horrified at what he had done.

"The book!" was all he managed to choke out.

"Forget the book, look at you!" Usagi replied. Umino glanced down, and sure enough he looked a mess, the pink milkshake covering his starched white shirt. And dripping cleanly onto the floor.

Motoki hurried over, and stared, wide-eyed at the sticky mess that covered the counter, and then up at the boy covered with it as well.

"Motoki-onii-san, can we use that back room?" Usagi asked, looking at Motoki with rather wide-eyes. Motoki nodded mutely, he wasn't about to argue, the boy was pretty much drenched in pink.

"Come on," he said, motioning them to follow him. He quickly led them behind the counter and into the back room, which he quickly unlocked.

Usagi pulled Umino along, as he stood silently blushing crimson and looking rather embarrassed.

"Gomen nasai," he said to Motoki as Usagi dragged him into the room. Motoki gave him a small smile, of assurance as the door swung shut.

Motoki let out a frustrated sigh, as he stared at the sticky mess that covered his counter.

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Mamoru had continued his reading, mostly undisturbed, until that is, he heard a shriek. He jerked his head up to see where the sound had come from, and saw it was Odango Atama, screeching.

"UMINO!" he heard her cry, he grimaced and let out a snort. Honestly, the girl was a hypocrite; here she was yelling at him that he had no manners, when she was yelling at a poor boy rather rudely, and without a single suffix of respect!

"Hmph, and she thinks I'm bad," Mamoru muttered.

"Who said you're bad?" Motoki asked, grabbing his rag, and turning determinedly to the mess.

"Odango Atama."

"Ah, I wonder why she would ever say a thing like that?" Motoki said, shifting the numerous books off the counter.

"Haha, you're a riot," Mamoru replied, sourly.

"Hey, mind helping me here?" Motoki asked, trying to clean some of the splatters off the books, so as to not make more of a mess.

"Yes, I do, actually. You should be helping _me_," Mamoru responded, not looking away from his papers.

"And I will, as soon as I'm done here. And I think that as my friend, and as my partner, you should come help me so I can do that." Motoki replied.

Mamoru sighed, "can't you ever take a day off?"

"You know the answer to that," Motoki said, tossing the heavy books at Mamoru.

"Enlighten me," Mamoru grunted, as he heaved the books away from the mess

"My parents own the shop remember, the day I get a day off is when I own the place."

"Yeah, but what's that guarantee? I personally have my money on Unuzaki getting to own the place, rather than you."

"You astound me with your cold-heartedness," Motoki said, seriously.

"One of many good qualities," Mamoru replied.

"Yeah, like mine is in keeping my mouth shut," Motoki countered.

"Wow I really am a bad person aren't I?"

"You finally noticed, but you can be redeemed!" Motoki said, a sudden diabolical idea occurring to him.

"Oh, really?" Mamoru said, giving the sandy haired boy a rather challenging look. Motoki nodded, a slight smirk playing on his face. "What?" Mamoru asked, not quite noticing the odd glint in his friends green eyes.

"Grab a few more napkins from the back room, and the clean towel hanging off the dryer," Motoki stated simply.

"Hmmm, no selling my soul to the devil in exchange for a great path of enlightenment?" Mamoru asked, slightly amused at the turn in Motoki's act. Usually Motoki was quite the sarcastic joker, and made light remarks on his persona.

"Nope, just grab a few napkins and the clean rag from the dryer."

"Alright, then," Mamoru said, sliding off his stool and heading off to the back room. His back turned, he never saw the slightly diabolical grin his best friend had, nor the mischievous glint that hid in his emerald eyes.

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"Argh, Umino! You're such a klutz!" Usagi said, after the door swung shut behind them.

"Gomen nasai," Umino replied with a sigh.

Usagi merely shook her head, "Come on we need to get you cleaned up." And she led him to the sink.

"Give me your shirt," she commanded.

"What?"

She directed a dark look toward him, and he silently unbuttoned his shirt and handed it to her. "Sit," she said, indicating to the counter next to the sink.

He sighed but complied. "I suppose it is a good thing I didn't bring Naru-chan, at least she avoided embarrassment."

Usagi had turned on the water, and had begun to scrub the pink stains off his shirt, but abruptly stopped after he made his statement. "That's not true Umino."

"Yes it is, this would have completely embarrassed her," Umino said. "Honestly, Usagi the only reason you probably aren't embarrassed is because I've done this so many times," he said, somewhat bitterly.

Usagi shut the water and turned to face Umino. "How could I be embarrassed? If anything you should be embarrassed about me, I'm the Odango Atama who can barely walk straight, remember?" She said, in the most comforting way.

Umino didn't reply. "Umino, I know you like Naru-chan, and I can promise you this, she would never be embarrassed about this. Annoyed maybe, but never embarrassed."

"Usagi, that's just you, you're my best friend, you've had to put up with me since we were 4!" Umino cried.

"So?"

"What do you mean so? No normal girl would put up with me, like this! I'm not worthy!"

"Don't say that!" Usagi snapped. "Any normal girl would be lucky to have a guy like you, Naru-chan included!"

"No, look at me! I'm a klutz, I'm a nerd, I'm not good looking, I'm not charming or any of that!" Umino rationalized, his voice level.

Usagi shook her head, refusing to listen to anymore of her best friends foolishness.

"You can't really think that."

"Yes, I do, and I'm sure you do too."

Usagi shook her head, and again turned to scrubbing the shirt. "No I don't, I think you're a bit stupid at the moment, so I'm not going to even deign that remark with a proper response."

Umino stared at her, eyebrows raised. It wasn't often Usagi talked so briskly, or forlornly. "Although, I'll tell you one thing Umino, Naru-chan will definitely not have any interest in you if you insist on saying you're unworthy. No girl will."

Umino hung his head, listening to her calm declarations. "But, Usagi…I…I…want to…to…be able to win Naru-chan's heart, and not with the fried shrimp I always give her at lunch!"

Usagi shut the water and quickly wrung the now clean shirt. She quickly stuffed it in the dryer, before turning to address Umino.

"You can, Umino, you don't need anything else to win her heart. You're enough, you don't need the fried shrimp."

"I don't want to use the fried shrimp," Umino corrected. "That doesn't mean I didn't need it for her to eat lunch with me."

"alright then don't bring any of that for lunch, and just ask her to eat lunch with you."

"She'd laugh!"

Usagi shook her head, "you don't give Naru-chan enough credit. You do know she's not that shallow."

Umino stared at her awestruck, and slight spark ingited in his eyes. "Shallow," he repeated the word with fervor, his gaze becoming glassy.

Usagi stared at him confusedly, _what in the world…_

"That's it!" he cried. "You can make me look better!"

Usagi stared at him, her eyes like round little beads as she answered, "you don't need to look better."

"But I want to!" He said, giving her a look of utter desperation.

Usagi stared at him a moment, a bit struck by the deep desperation that was etched in his voice. "Fine," she heard herself say. There wasn't a lot Umino ever asked of her, perhaps she could help him in this one shallow conquest of his.

Umino smiled, he gently reached for her hand, "Arigatou," he said, and he pulled her into a hug.

"Ugh, your sticky," Usagi commented. "And you smell like strawberry ice cream!"

Umino rolled his eyes, "you know you like it," he joked.

Usagi smiled, and laughed lightly.

It was then that the door opened and admitted into view the tall form of one Mamoru Chiba.

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**A/N**: My Usagi is in quite the compromising situation is she not? Hugging a shirt-less 16 year old boy!

I'm pretty much dying to write the next chapter, I've got a ton of ideas for it, so I should have it finished and up within a few days, and yes I know Makoto was absent from this cahpet, but I can garauntee she'll be in the next one. And for anyone who cares about Raku, believe me she's got a few tricks up her sleeves, and she'll be in the next chapter.

So I'm really happy everyone seems to like the story so much, and I thank all of you who have reviewed!

_**Celeste-Love: The Amazon girl Raku was talking about was Makoto, I'm sorry if that was unclear, but as Raku doesn't know who Makoto is she calls her the Amaxon girl as she's tall. As to Usagi and her stubbornness, ummm we'll have to wait and see about that :)**_

_**KageNoNeko: Exactly right! Motoki's idea was a bit spur of the moment, but we'll see how it pans out in the end. **_

_**Greenpluff: I'm glad you like the story so far, and there will definetly be a lot more Motoki, Mamoru and Makoto, in the next chapter there should be a lot of that actually, and thanks for the hugs :)**_

_**Girls Of Darkness: hehehe thanks, I'm very happy you've enjoyed it so far, and I can promise Makoto's going to be in the story more, I have a few plans in store for her.**_

_**SerenityMoonGodness: Thanks a lot, I worked hard on it!**_


	6. Reactions and Actions

**A/N:** Hello! Yes I am still alive, I;m not dead, I just wasn't able to update before. I'm really sorry about this, but I do have an excuse! I swear!

Ok so I've been really busy with my job at WCS, but then my mom went out of town and I had to watch my sisters, and then there was a problem with my internet connection and I wan't able to upload the chapter. I am really sorry for not having updated in so long. Forgive me?

And now before I continue to beg for forgiveness I'll let you go ahead and read the chapter. I hope you all like it, I had some issues writing it.

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"What's with the diabolical look?" Makoto asked, sliding onto a stool. She glanced at the counter, "and what happened here? Strawberry explosion?"

Motoki grinned, "You should love me,"

Makoto stared at him aghast. "What?!"

"I've just made a major play in our plan," Motoki explained, oblivious to Makoto's bright pink face.

"Oh," Makoto responded.

"Well, aren't you going to ask me what I did?" Motoki asked.

"umm, hai, sure."

Motoki leaned towards her, and whispered lightly in her ear. Makoto nearly gasped at his close proximity, as his breathe tickled her ear. "-With the funny kid in there they'll figure out their true feelings."

Makoto stared at him wide-eyed. "Wait, what funny kid?"

"The one with the big glasses."

"Umino-kun?!" Makoto cried, disbelievingly. "That's Usagi-chan's oldest friend!"

"All the better…right?" He asked uncertainly.

"I have no idea, but why were they back there anyway?" Makoto asked, until a though struck her, could they possibly have asked for some 'private time'?

It was as though Motoki read her mind, "of course they wouldn't do a thing like that! The kid just made a mess and got himself covered in his milkshake, so Usagi asked to use the room to help him clean-up," Motoki explained.

"Didn't you listen to me before?" he asked, a bit of annoyance tracing his voice.

"Oh, right," Makoto responded hurriedly.

Motoki looked as though he wanted to say something but was cut short by the slamming of a door.

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_Umino smiled, he gently reached for her hand, "Arigatou," he said, and he pulled her into a hug._

"_Ugh, your sticky," Usagi commented. "And you smell like strawberry ice cream!"_

_Umino rolled his eyes, "you know you like it," he joked._

_Usagi smiled, and laughed lightly._

_It was then that the door opened and admitted into view the tall form of one Mamoru Chiba._

Mamoru stood erect as he took in the sight of the blond beauty hugging the rather tall nerd. "Odango?" he whispered, disbelievingly.

Usagi stared at Mamoru, a little too shocked to move, but quickly shook herself and extracted herself from the embrace. While Umino sat motionless on the counter. He stared wide-eyed as Mamoru turned faintly pink.

"Mamoru-san, what are you doing here?" Usagi squeaked.

"Uhm, Gomen nasai," he managed to say. "I wasn't aware that anybody was back here, I'll just…uh…be leaving" he said, _and possibly crawl away somewhere and at least attempt to scratch this out of my memory._ And with that, Mamoru turned and left without another word his cheeks a rather nice shade of pink

The door swung shut, with a rather loud clang.

Moments passed, before Usagi managed to gain feeling, and turned a darker shade of red.

"Kami!" Usagi choked out.

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Makoto and Motoki waited, Motoki rather calm, and Makoto rather agitated.

"Do you think something happened?" Makoto whispered, worriedly.

"Hopefully," Motoki responded, as he turned back to the messy counter.

It was then that the duo heard the slow, heavy steps coming down the back hall. Makoto gasped.

Motoki turned quickly, and caught sight of the strange sight Makoto had before. Before them stood a rather vacant looking Mamoru.

"Mamoru-san?" Makoto asked, peering at him.

Mamoru didn't respond, only then did he suddenly again begin to turn pink, no doubt his mind filled with the images from his previous encounter moments ago.

"Mamoru?" Motoki said, waving his hands in front of Mamoru's face.

It seemed an eternity before Mamoru reacted, and caught Motoki's hand. "You really don't have to wave that thing in my face," Mamoru said, giving Motoki a teasing glance.

"Well I was seconds away from using my rag to get your attention. You came out of there looking like a blushing bride!" Motoki explained.

Mamoru turned red, as Makoto let out a slight giggle that she quickly masked as a deep cough.

"Excuse me?" Mamoru choked out.

Motoki merely rolled his eyes, "you heard me."

Mamoru merely threw a glare at his best friend, before shrugging, and turning to leave without another word. His eyes seeming to glaze over, as he exited the arcade, not a word of his best friends yells penetrating his ears.

"MAMORU!" Motoki called, "What about the project?!" However his calls fell upon death ears as Mamoru disappeared through the doors of the arcade, looking rather stiff,

"What happened?" Makoto whispered.

Motoki shrugged, "he's thinking is all."

"Thinking? He ignores his best friend when he's thinking?" Makoto weaseled.

"Not all the time, he's in his own little world now, nothing you or I say is going to snap him out of it," Motoki explained, matter-of-factly. "I suppose I'll have to work on the project tonight after I close up," he muttered to himself.

"Is that all? You're not going to ask him about it at all?" Makoto asked, a bit scandalized.

Motoki blinked, "no," he answered simply.

"Why?!"

"Simple, he won't answer me until he's done thinking."

Makoto blinked at him, unable to respond.

"So what do you suppose happened back there?" Motoki asked, turning back to his cleaning.

"I don't know, what ever happened, probably wasn't good though."

"I'll say, Mamoru didn't even get me my other rag! He really is irredeemable!" Motoki declared.

"I'll get it for you," Makoto volunteered. And headed down the hall to the backroom, just as she reached to open the door, it swung open, allowing Makoto to view a rather flustered Usagi and a serene, calm Umino.

"Usagi-chan, Umino-kun! What happened?" Makoto demanded.

"Nothing," Usagi practically yelled. While Umino let out a sigh. Makoto glanced at them questioningly.

"I doubt it was nothing Usagi-chan, Mamoru-san came out looking like a…a…-"

"A blushing bride," Motoki called.

Usagi's eyes widened, "he looked like what?"

"I believe the guy said a 'blushing bride'" Umino said, imagining the idea clearly, and trying to stifle his giggle.

"Don't giggle Umino, it's unattractive in a guy," Usagi shot out, immediately silencing him.

'USagi-chan!" Makoto cried, scandalized. Usagi blushed slightly, but shrugged.

"I have to go home, Mama will worry," she said, and without another word fled the arcade.

Motoki stared after her, a rather long look of grim suspision etched on his face. He turned his penetrating gaze on the long haired 16 year old.

"Alright, Umino-kun free shakes for a month says you tell me what happened in that room."

Umino's jaw dropped, there wasn't a lot he couldn't do under the influence of sugar, and that strawberry milkshake he'd had before really was tasty…

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His mind was pretty much clear of coherent thoughts, but was flooded with emotions, as he pounded down the streets of Tokyo, not really going anywhere near his apartment building. It wasn't a time for him to go home just yet.

He couldn't think, and this was what really got Mamoru, how could he not think? How was it possible? He was logical, and in order to be logical he had to think, yet here he was not thinking but feeling. Half the emotions that coursed through him confused him. He felt anger in the pit of his stomach, he could feel shock sending strange signals from his brain to his body, he even felt a pinch of sadness stinging at him, and in his chest he felt such a strange and unbearable pain, as though some wild beast was running around wreaking havoc on his poor heart.

It was all this and a bit more of what he recognized but refused to acknowledge that plagued Mamoru in his wandering.

Jealousy wasn't a word Mamoru took lightly, in fact it was something he rarely felt and always condemned as a rather meaningless emotion to feel.

And this was a time he felt it, why he felt it was the bigger question. He knew the answer but was rather reluctant to admit it, as it astounded him to such heights of incoherency.

How was it possible that seeing the little blond Odango Atama hugging a bare-chested boy could ignite such feelings of jealousy within him?

Actually the answer was quite obvious, it was really only Mamoru's reluctance to admit the truth, as he knew it would lead to a new load of questions.

He walked, one block, two blocks, three blocks. Perhaps it was time to admit defeat? _No, absolutely not, there's no way in hell that I'm going to admit that I was jealous of that little scene!_

The only drawback was that he already had, Mamoru let out a growl of frustration, _What do I have to be jealous about? Of that little ditz? Absolutely not._ However the image continued to burn in his mind of the small smile that played against her bright pink lips, that were just so dangerously close to the boy, her pretty cerulean eyes closed in contentment as the boys arms wrapped around her, pulling her close. He could clearly see the sun-kissed hair swishing against the naked torso of the young adolescent.

He could feel his blood boil, only to bring out a strange reaction of why?!

He wholeheartedly disliked the girl, why was he jealous that some little nerd was giving her hugs, albeit shirtless hugs, but hugs all the same?

_You know the answer, all you have to do is admit it, and mull it over, and then logically find a way to discredit the answer._ He thought.

_Or you could actually admit to the truth and deal with it, and face the whole issue head on, come on, you have the courage to go face energy sucking youma's in a top hat and a neatly pressed tuxedo, how do you not have the courage to face a little blonde who's two years younger than you?!_

The argument was pretty stable, and logical. Perhaps this one time he could turn his back on logic. Then again, logic was one of the few things Mamoru could ever depend on.

Life had never been particularly kind to him, sure many would say he had it great, he lived on his own, had a pretty nice trustfund, and was obviously smart enough to go to one of the most elite high schools in Japan.

These ideas had seemed a bit frivolous to him, he'd gladly trade the empty room and trustfund to have two of the most important people in his life, his mother and father. He'd give anything away to get rid of the some gnawing feelings of solitude he almost always felt.

Mamoru numbly shook his head, it wasn't time for self-wallowing. Making his decision was quite simple, logic may have always been one of the few things he could depend on, this was one instance it seemed to fail him. However logical it may seem for this surgence of newfound feelings to be, Mamoru refused to believe in the logic of it all.

"Logic really bites," he muttered, as he turned resolutely in the direction of his home.

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Usagi spent the better part of her morning rather confused as Makoto continually threw her rather knowing and concerned smiles. It had her feeling rather anxious.

"Usagi! Answer!" Haruna-sensei cried out, loudly.

Usagi blushed and began to mumble incoherently.

"Not paying attention today, again?"

"No I was, I just don't know the answer," USagi re[lied quickly, although she was lying, she thought feigning stupidity was better than getting stuck in detention for the afternoon. Due to her growing amount of work, and newly found promise she couldn't really afford to be stuck in school writing a pointless essay for an extra two hours.

"Exactly, you weren't paying attention! Umino just answered the question!"

Usagi struggled to come up with an answer, and quickly settled on a rather air-headed response, "Well he used some big words, and I didn't understand!"

Haruna-sensei blinked, wondering if it were really possible for her student to reach such depths of idiocy. She turned away, "Alright, then Umino would you please explain the answer again, for Usagi to understand."

Umino complied, "In order to solve for the area of the triangle you have to find the sides of the triangle and then find the sin of C, and in order to do that you have to use the law of cos, and then plug the numbers into the area formula and there you have the area…"

Usagi closed her eyes, she knew that already, basic common sense to figure that one out. _I suppose Haruna-sensei has already written me off as a complete lost cause for entering high school. _

She didn't bother to listen to the lesson anymore for the remainder of the morning, but passed the time trying to figure out what exactly had Makoto sending these smiles of concern to her.

A thought occurred to her, _"NO!"_ she cried, just as the bell rang sounding the end of morning classes. She blushed immediately but found no one was paying a speck of attention to her, except that is for Makoto and Umino.

Both hurried over to her, Makoto being the first clamped onto her arm and pulled her out of the classroom. "Usagi-chan!" she nearly hissed.

"What is going on?" Usagi demanded, giving the tall brunette a rather dark look.

"Why didn't you tell me what happened yesterday?"

Usagi's mind blanked, it was exactly what she was dreading, 'the incident' as she now called it. It wasn't something easily explained, and would most likely result in a number of rather loud yelps from her friend.

"Who told you about that?" Usagi demanded, but she was quickly answered by the loud voice of Umino.

"Usagi!" He cried, as he managed to reach the two girls.

"Umino," she growled, glaring heavily at the tall boy. He looked at her expectantly. 'You told Makoto-chan about what happened?" He nodded slowly, unaware of the anger that was threatening to explode from the small blonde.

"I forced him to," Makoto interjected, throwing Umino a look that said, 'follow along if you don't want to die'. Usagi was oblivious to the look, and glared steadily at Umino, he however took the hint and nodded fervently.

"Hai, it's true, she…uh…gave me a huge sundae and well, you know how I am with sugar," Umino stated, sweat beading his forehead.

Usagi rolled her eyes, "I swear you're mother is determined to make you the most abnormal teenager in Japan."

Umino scowled, at his childhood friend, but followed behind her as Makoto pulled her out of the classroom by her arm.

"Now, I ask again, why didn't you tell me?" Makoto hissed.

Usagi refused to look her in the eye, but stared at her feet, rather interestedly. "Well there's nothing to tell really, it was an accident and kind of embarrassing."

"And you didn't mention it to me why?"

"Because, I thought it was embarrassing!"

"Why does it matter?" Umino interjected, looking skeptically at the two girls. "I thought it was bit funny personally, that guy always looks a bit too serious, his face was rather funny."

Makoto stared at him, astounded. While Usagi gave him a look of outrage, "it wasn't funny! It was embarrassing!"

"I don't even want to know what he thinks now, I mean we had issues before, but now I can already hear that stupid arrogant voice of his making stupid comments about it!"

Makoto shook her head, "Oh, come on Usagi-chan, Mamoru-san is a decent guy, he wouldn't do something like that."

"Hmmph," was Usagi's only response.

"Usagi, we need to work on the project," Umino stated.

Usagi grimaced, " Now?"

Umino nodded, "well since I expect we'll be busy after school with _other things."_

"Oh, right."

Makoto had walked ahead of the two and was headed toward the patio of the school. "Makoto-chan!" Usagi called, "I'm going to the library with Umino, I'll see you in class!" And then the blonde almost literally hopped out of view around the corner, followed by Umino.

"Library?" Makoto echoed, rather confused. Why would they go to the library now? However she shrugged it off and exited the school and went in search of her blue-haired friend for lunch.

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"Feeling better today?" Motoki asked, taking in Mamoru's rather sullen look.

"About the same as any other day," Mamoru replied.

"Ah, so the same irredeemable stoic of always?" Motoki asked.

"Funny."

"I know I am."

"And feeling humble today are we?" Mamoru shot back.

"Yep, and am definitely not in the mood for the evasive tactic from my so called best friend.

"Evasive tactic?"

Motoki rolled his eyes, "Alright then, I give up, you go on with that weird mulling, you can come back when you're ready to stop with the morose nonsense."

"Oh, Alright," Mamoru conceded. "What are you dying to know?"

Motoki flashed him a grin, "What happened yesterday?"

A rather confused look crossed Mamoru's face. "Usagi didn't tell you?"

"Uh, no. Was she supposed to?" Motoki replied, feigning confusion as well. He didn't particularly like acting as though he didn't know what was going on, nor deceiving his best friend. But this was the only way to find out what was going on with Mamoru. And should all things go according to plan, Mamoru would not be sitting like lump everyday, rather he'd be happy. Motoki consoled himself with that idea.

"Well, no I just thought she might had told you…" Mamoru scrunched his eyebrows in thought. "Stupid of me to think she'd tell you something like _that_," he let out a rather long laugh.

Motoki's eyebrows rose as he gave Mamoru a perplexed look, Mamoru eventually managed to control his laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"The idea that she of all people would tell you something of that sort," Mamoru responded nonchalantly.

"Well, perhaps of you told me what that 'something' is I'd understand what was so funny, rather than think you ate coffee beans last night!"

"Perhaps," Mamoru replied, knowing fully well that he was thoroughly annoying Motoki. However the dark look he received from Motoki cut his moment of teasing.

"Ah, right. It was just a bit strange yesterday," Mamoru began.

"Strange?" Motoki inquired.

Mamoru nodded, "hai, it was very…awkward."

"What happened?"

"I just walked into your storage room, and found Odango Atama in a very compromising situation…"

'Compromising?" Motoki asked, puzzled and intrigued.

Mamoru nodded. "How?" Motoki prompted.

Mamoru blushed a bit, thinking back to the previous day. "Well, she was um…kind of hugging that guy who was with her."

"Umino-kun?" Motoki questioned.

Mamoru nodded, "Yes, him…and he was wearing no shirt-"

"He was shirtless?" Motoki asked.

Mamoru gave him a rather hard look before nodding. "So, they were doing things…while he was shirtless," He finished, rather lamely.

Motoki stared at Mamoru for a moment, and finally replied, "Well that's a bit…unexpected."

Mamoru gaped incredulous, "Unexpected?! How about inappropriate, unwarranted, wrong, unwanted, bad, unforeseeable, disgusting, horrid, uncalled for, and absolutely unnecessary!"

Motoki looked completely unsurprised by his friends sudden outburst. "Well maybe not so unexpected," he said, much to Mamoru's surprise.

"Not so unexpected?" Mamoru echoed, unable to find anything else to say.

"Well, yeah, Usagi-chan is getting older, she's not the little 14 year old who threw her test paper at you before, she's about to turn 16 soon." Motoki explained patiently.

"What?!" Mamoru nearly exploded. "How can you say that? You're supposed to be her Onii-san!"

Motoki rolled his eyes, "But I'm not her Onii-san, I'm her friend. And I'm not exactly blind to how she's grown, I'm sure you've noticed." Motoki turned away from the counter and set to doing the dishes.

Mamoru stared at his back floored by what had just occurred. Had Motoki actually admitted to have been checking out Odango-Atama? The idea made his skin crawl, Odango was barely about to turn 16 in the coming month, yet it seemed as though it were normal for the little blonde to go around hugging shirtless boys! Well normal perhaps to everybody else, definitely not to him and absolutely not to her father.

_Did I just put myself in the same category as her father?_ Mamoru asked himself, rather shocked and annoyed at the same time.

He quickly shook himself, and turned to Motoki who still remained with his back turned washing dishes.

Motoki continued to wash the dishes all the while attempting to stifle his laughter, he could just see Mamoru's expressions as he sat thinking. Honestly he knew his friend to well to not know his reaction, Moreover Motoki was quite pleased with his 'performance' of having dropped the bombshell of not being Usagi's Onii-san.

He couldn't see how Mamoru could believe him, but was quite happy that he did. It wouldn't do to have it be unbelievable that Motoki could possibly more than just brotherly affection for Usagi.

_Well this pretty much covers step 1, 2 and 3 all in one. Makoto-chan should be happy…I hope,_ Motoki thought idly to himself.

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"The mall?" Umino asked, doubtfully.

Usagi nodded vigorously. "You wanted a make-over, the mall's the best place to do it!" She replied rather enthusiastically.

Umino looked unconvinced as he took in the sight of the crowded mall. It seemed everywhere he turned there were people. Umino wasn't very good with people. However before he was able to dwell much on that fact, Usagi had already begun to drag him up the escalator.

Umino reluctantly followed after her, and nearly cringed as he entered the air-conditioned interior of a large teen store.

Usagi pulled him along to the far wall that held racks of clothing. "Yes, this is exactly what I had in mind," she said, excitedly, pulling a light green polo shirt and a pair of khaki pants off the rack. She handed the clothing to Umino, and continued to pull a few more articles off the rack, while Umino stared incredulously at the growing pile in his arms.

"Uhm, Usagi, are you sure that this'll work?" he asked uncertainly.

"Of course," Usagi responded, brightly, as she pushed him into the dressing rooms.

After painstakingly trying on every piece of clothing Usagi had handed him, Umino finally exited the dressing room, and fell into the empty seat beside Usagi. "Are we done yet?" he moaned.

Usagi shook her head, "Nope, we've still got a lot to do." Umino responded with a groan.

"C'mon," Usagi said taking hold of his hand and pulling him out of his chair. The two paid for the purchase and exited the store, with Usagi leading the way to their next stop.

Umino followed along absently thinking about a manga he'd recently read, and didn't realize they were headed into a salon, until he was seated with the stylist at hand ready with a pair of scissors.

Umino could only sit silently in the chair as his rather long brown hair was hacked off by the stylist, whom he'd already mentally deemed as the deranged one, due to the rather strange glint that was dancing in his eyes.

Overall the haircut was finished quite quickly, and as soon as the 'deranged one' had set down the scissors Umino was on his feet and ready to turn and run, only to find Usagi standing in his way with a very ecstatic expression on her face.

"Perfect!" she squealed, she ran her hand through the thick locks of hair, that grazed his forehead.

"Don't you like it?" Usagi asked. Umino merely gave her a confused look. She quickly latched onto his arm and brought him to one of the mirrors.

Umino stared into his reflection aghast. It was…it was…he was unrecognizable. No longer did his hair fall long past his ears, rather it was neatly trimmed, with side bangs grazing his glasses. Rather than being usually limp and stringy, his hair flowed rather wavy to graze the sides of his head.

"And one last touch,"Usagi announced, and without warning slid his glasses off, leaving Umino to stare at his now blurry reflection. "Perfect."

"I doubt being blind constitutes as perfect," Umino replied, holding his hand out expectantly for the return of his glasses.

"I know you have contacts, I think it's time you get over your fear of them," Usagi stated, and rather than returning his glasses, she took hold of his hand and pulled him away.

"I am not afraid of contacts!" Umino retorted.

"Oh right, so saying that if you wear contacts they'll roll to the back of your head, and permanently blind you, has nothing to do with your fear of contacts?" Usagi shot back.

"But it's a possibility, and I am not going to take that chance! Besides they make your eyes turn circular, when they're supposed to be an oval!"

"That is a lie!"

"No it's not, I read it on the internet!"

"You can't believe everything you read on the internet!"

"Yes I can."

"No you can't!"

"Yes I can!"

"Umino, shut up!"

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Mamoru tapped his foot rather impatiently, he'd been waiting for about 15 minutes so far, and still there was no sign of that so called best friend of his.

He had no idea why he'd agreed to this excursion, but nonetheless there he sat on a wooden bench in the center of a very crowded mall, filled with couples and families.

He let out a sigh, and wistfully watched a rather large and boisterous family make their way into a department store.

"You can't believe everything you read on the internet!"

Mamoru turned as he heard the rather familiar voice, he looked around, but didn't see her.

"Yes I can!"

He heard the voices from behind him, he turned and was faced with a large fake plant, that was set out as decoration.

"No you can't!"

Mamoru wondered how strange it would look if he poked his head through the plant.

"Yes I can!"

After hearing the voice again, Mamoru shrugged, it didn't really matter how strange he looked, as there was no one he knew around. After resolutely making his decision, Mamoru gingerly shifted through the fake leaves, and peered out to see Odango Atama, bickering lightly with a boy he couldn't quite place.

"You can't!" the blond said, with a scowl.

"I can!" The boy replied, defiantly. Only to be responded to with a rather cutting remark.

"Umino, Shut up!" Usagi cried exasperated.

The boy pouted, with a slight look of hurt written on his face.

"Don't look at me like that! We still have things to do! I think we'll go to the new shoe store that opened and then we can-" Usagi began.

"Ice cream!" the boy stated, a rather happy look now gracing his features.

"Ice cream?"

"Yes! I mean we've done a lot already, I think we should take a break and get some ice cream," the boy explained.

Usagi looked torn, "oh, come on, it'll be my treat, I'll get you the extra large brownie sundae with a caramel drizzle," the boy said, with a hopeful smile.

"Ice cream it is then!" Usagi decided, and the next second she took off, dragging him along, "and you're paying for all of it!"

Mamoru stared transfixed as the two ran out of sight. Where they just holding hands? A better question would be who the boy was, it definitely wasn't the nerd he'd seen the day before.

_Does Odango really go through them that fast?_ He asked himself, but immediately felt the rush of blood flowing to his face, as he tried to stamp out the idea that was sprouting out of his mind.

"oooh, I love a blushing boy, Mamoru-san." Mamoru glanced up and just about cringed.

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**A/N:** Don't kill me, it's not really a cliffhanger, I'm sure you all know who just intruded on Mamoru's spying.

So as always any feedback would be nice, so please leave me a review =)


	7. Just a little brown nosing

**A/N:** Hey guys, Happy Columbus day!

So, yes I've been pretty late with the update, and I'm really sorry for that, but I've been really busy with school. And well I've had a lot going on, and haven't had time to write all that much.

Sorry, but I'll try and update sooner rather than later.

Alright, one last thing I'll be posting updates on my profile, so if you all want to check that out.

And, here's the next chapter, I worked pretty hard on this, but it seems a bit awkward, anyway hope you like it!

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_Mamoru stared transfixed as the two ran out of sight. Where they just holding hands? A better question would be who the boy was, it definitely wasn't the nerd he'd seen the day before._

_Does Odango really go through them that fast?__He asked himself, but immediately felt the rush of blood flowing to his face, as he tried to stamp out the idea that was sprouting out of his mind._

"_oooh, I love a blushing boy, Mamoru-san." Mamoru glanced up and just about cringed._

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However, being Mamoru Chiba, he had the advantage of quickly covering his unsavory response.

He immediately plastered what he hoped was a pleasant smile on his face. "Raku-san," he said slowly.

A moment later he felt a rather heavy something fall onto his lap. His eyes widened, while Raku merely gave him a rather big smile.

"Raku-san…do you think…"

"Yes?" she purred.

"Can you get off of me?" he asked, as courteous as possible.

Her expression didn't waver, as she slid off of Mamoru's lap, on the contrary, her smile grew as she slowly slid across his lap, and brushed against his rather broad chest.

"No problem," she said, with a smile.

"Thanks," he said, with a bit of difficulty.

She sat herself comfortably beside him, "well, I have some bad news," she said.

Mamoru stiffened slightly, _bad news?_

"Well it turns out Motoki couldn't make it, he's having some issues over at the arcade. And he asked me to come over and keep you company," Raku said, although neglecting to tell him that the 'issues' Motoki was having, had been caused by some of her very reverent admirers, who incidentally broke the change machine, threw a few items into the soft serve machine and also put two of the most popular games out of order.

Mamoru seemed unable to respond, or find anyway to respond to that. He knew Motoki greatly disliked Raku, but couldn't really figure why she would bother lying to him about this. "That's really nice of you, Raku-san, but I'm sure you have a lot of other things you'd rather be doing, than just keeping me company. I'd really hate to be a bother to you," he began politely.

"Oh, it's no bother at all," Raku interjected eagerly. "I'm sure we'll have fun," and without allowing Mamoru to politely decline again, pulled him off the bench and lead him away.

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Motoki fell back onto a barstool, exhausted, and very relieved to have managed to tame the crowd around the arcade. Who knew so many things could go wrong in a day, it was just a good thing that he had caught Makoto on the way out and asked her to make a quick detour to the mall to explain the situation to Mamoru.

_Well at least Makoto-chan's getting in some time to work on things with Mamoru,_ he thought to himself.

Unazaki fell beside her older brother with a sigh, "I'm beyond tired," she mumbled.

"So am I," Motoki replied. The siblings settled into the comfort of their stools, enjoying the silence that was hardly customary to have at the arcade.

Unfortunately a sharp ringing interrupted their relaxation.

"You get it!" they both cried at the same time, as neither wanted to move.

"I'm not getting it!" they both responded.

"I worked tables today!" Unazaki complained.

"Well, I worked bar and kitchen!" Motoki countered.

"But I fixed the change machine!" Unazaki shot back.

"Well I ran a bunch 12 year olds out of here, that were trying to steal the change behind your back!" Motoki retaliated.

"UGH FINE!" Unazaki exploded, before hopping off her stool and over the bar to grab the phone. She pressed it to her ear and with a painfully cheery voice answered, "hello crown arcade and diner."

Several moments passed, of Unazaki merely listening to the other side, before she turned to Motoki, "It's for you," she said, setting it down.

Motoki groaned, but peeled himself off his stool, and hopped over the counter, while Unazaki quickly gathered her things. Just as he reached for the phone Unazaki called to him, "I'm heading out, you lock up tonight!" and she ran out the door before Motoki could raise any complaints.

He glared after his younger sister, "just great, now I'm stuck here for another twenty minutes!" A few moments passed before he realized he still hadn't answered the phone.

"Hello?" he asked, and was surprised to hear Makoto on the other side. He listened intently, before bursting rather loudly with "WHAT?!"

Seconds later he'd hung up the phone, and ran around the arcade securing the locked windows, checking the freezer and stove, and taking a quick look into the storage rooms, finishing his inspection he grabbed his things and ran out the back door, locking the heavy steel door behind him in record time, before bounding out to the nearest bus stop.

He was going to kill Mamoru.

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Mamoru let out an exhausted sigh as he followed after Raku, he'd stayed with Raku for nearly an hour, and had been to some places he'd vowed never to enter, all for the sake of being polite. However now that the hour was coming to a close, he thought it was socially acceptable that he excuse himself now.

"Come on Mamoru-san!" Raku sang, taking hold of his hand and pulling him into another shop, this one being a shoe store.

"Uh, listen Raku-san," Mamoru began, but was interrupted by a loud set of laughs, he turned in the direction of the sound, and his gaze fell on none other than Odango and her 'date'.

"oooh, Mamoru-san look there's a sale on pumps!" Raku cried excitedly, drawing a bit of attention from the other customers, and without losing a moment she pulled him over the boxes held behind models of multi-colored pumps.

Mamoru felt himself turn pink, under the gaze of many other shoppers who were also checking out the pumps as Raku pushed different pairs of pumps under his nose for his inspection. He attempted to smile and nod, while giving the best possible praise, which was rather hard considering how little he knew or cared for shoes.

It seemed he did a rather good job of disguising his lack of knowledge, as Usagi and Umino watched him and Raku entertained.

The two had been watching Mamoru and Raku since Raku's little outburst about the pumps. At which time Usagi had glanced up to see the dark haired man she'd been hoping to avoid since the incident yesterday.

Now both Usagi and Umino sat quietly watching the spectacle that Raku was making with the multi-colored pumps.

"I bet that's his girlfriend," Usagi commented, "exactly what you'd expect an idiot like him to go for," she stated taking in Raku's rather revealing outfit.

"Well I heard that girl goes to Moto Azabu, so she must be very smart and rich," Umino added, not really caring much for the conversation.

"He must like her a lot to go shopping for shoes, or he really likes pumps," Usagi said, "I personally think he really likes pumps," she said with a devilish smile.

Umino rolled his eyes, he could already see she was about to go into a tirade concerning Mamoru. He listened to her monologue about Mamoru's stupidity, immaturity, and evilness. When she finally stopped for breath, he asked rather bored, "Why do you insist on badmouthing the guy you like?"

Usagi's mouth hung open in shock, "What?" she spluttered. "I DO NOT like him!" she all but yelled, also drawing her own share of attention in the process.

"Shhh!" Umino grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the shop, he didn't want any shoes.

"I do not like him!" Usagi hissed.

"And that's why you were acting like a jealous little monkey?" Umino countered, briskly. He walked easily in the direction of the bookshop on the other side of the mall.

"Jealous monkey?" Usagi spluttered.

Umino nodded. "jealous of what?" Usagi demanded.

"Do I have to respond? You know better than me, you're just in denial of it." Umino stated simply, as he entered the book shop dragging a bemused Usagi in behind him.

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Makoto stood, waiting patiently for Motoki to arrive. Seconds later he arrived puffing and coughing. "I'm here," he managed to pant out.

"I can see that," Makoto said, staring at him a bit wide-eyed. "Did you run all the way here?" she asked. He nodded, still trying to catch his breath.

"Where are they?" he asked, after he recovered his breath. Wordlessly Makoto pointed to the shoe store, where through the large window, Motoki could make out the two figures of his best friend and 'the embodiment of evil'.

"How long have they been there?" he asked.

"About half an hour or so," Makoto responded, nonchalantly.

"Huh?" Motoki asked, dumbfounded, why in the world would Mamoru spend so much time in a shoe store? Mamoru didn't care about what shoes he wore, all anyone had to do was glance at him to see that everyday he wore the same old, dog-eared, dark shoes.

"Yep, I was a bit surprised, but it turns out there's a big sale on pumps," Makoto explained.

Motoki turned to her, "Pumps?"

Makoto nodded. "Why didn't you go in there and save him?" Motoki asked, he felt a great deal of pity for his friend, not only stuck with the immoral Raku but stuck at a shoe sale as well. Life really wasn't fair for Mamoru.

"Save him?" Makoto asked, a bit confused.

"Yes! Save him from that shoe sale!"

"What are you talking about? The shoes can't do anything to him, it's not like there's a youma throwing exploding shoes at people," Makoto reasoned.

Motoki let out an exasperated sigh, "A shoe doesn't have to be exploding for it to be torturous." Makoto blinked at him. "It's Mamoru, he's not much of a shopper, if you catch my drift," Motoki explained.

"Well, seeing as he is of the male population, it's kind of obvious that he's going to hate shopping," Makoto interjected.

"That's not necessarily true," Motoki said, slowly.

"You're not about to tell me, that you're an exception to that, are you?" Makoto asked, with an eye roll.

"Of course not," Motoki responded. He paused, "Mamoru is more of the exception to that rule."

"You just said shopping was torturous for him!" Makoto cut in. Motoki looked as though he was going to say something more, but instead he shrugged.

"Nevermind," was all he said. "So, why haven't you rescued him yet?"

Makoto didn't respond for a moment. "Well I was going to 'rescue' him, but that _girl_ just coincidentally dragged him into that shop, where Usagi-chan was with Umino-kun."

Motoki gawked at her, "What?!" he cried.

"Yes, that was my thought exactly," Makoto continued. "But they left a few minutes ago."

"Huh? Where'd they go?"

"Bookstore," she replied simply, pointing to a bookstore within clear view on the second floor.

"So is that why, you didn't…"

Makoto nodded. "Then why didn't you try to set a few more steps in motion?"

"I wasn't sure who to follow," Makoto replied.

"I see," Motoki said, staring pensively through the shop window at a cringing Mamoru.

"Should we split up and spy on them?" Makoto asked.

"No," Motoki replied, rather quickly. "I mean, I think it'd be better if we stuck together on this one," he explained.

Makoto nodded in agreement, "alright, then who should we follow?"

"That's what I've been wondering, who do you think?"

"Usagi-chan?" Makoto suggested.

"Alright, let's go then," Motoki agreed. And he quickly grabbed her by the hand, and led her stealthily up the stairs.

"Uhm, Motoki, where're you going?" Makoto asked.

"To the book store," Motoki replied.

"But they just left the store, about five minutes ago while you were thinking."

Motoki stared at her silently, before he blushed. "Oh, uh, I didn't notice," was all he managed to say.

Makoto was speechless, she remained silent as Motoki struggled to regain his composure, she couldn't help but notice how endearing Motoki looked when he blushed.

"So do you know where they went?" Motoki finally asked, after he had regained his composure.

"Coffee shop," Makoto answered, pointing in the opposite direction of the book shop.

"Are you sure?"

Makoto nodded, "I saw them go in there next," she replied, simply.

"You have really good eyesight, Motoki commented.

"Thanks."

The two quickly made their way to the coffee shop, Motoki made to enter , but Makoto pulled him back.

"What are you doing?" she hissed, in his ear.

"Going in to check it out," Motoki replied.

Makoto rolled her eyes, "you would never make it as a spy," was all she said.

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"I just don't understand you sometimes," Umino said, sipping his cup of coffee.

"I'm a girl Umino, you aren't really supposed to understand me," Usagi replied, staring at the bottom of her tea cup.

"Yes, but I'm also one of your oldest friends, I would think that by now I have a vague understanding of what goes on in that head of yours," Umino responded.

Usagi shrugged. Umino let out a sigh, honestly there were times the girl just puzzled him. He'd known usagi for years now, and would have generally thought himself to be an expert on her by now, from what her favorite manga is to what can drive her absolutely nuts, even if the latter is all thanks to Shingo's never ending stream of tricks. Still there were times like these, when she just left him wondering.

This instance left him rather puzzled, they had entered a book store, and she hadn't complained one bit, nor had she run to the Manga section upon entering, rather she stuck close behind him, complaining that he was wrong. But how could he be wrong? It was pretty logical for Usagi to have feelings for this guy. In actuality it was quite obvious they both had feelings for each other, one only had to look at them as they sat arguing to know there was a bit more under the surface.

However why Usagi was hiding these feelings was quite beyond Umino. From what he could tell he was exactly the type of guy Usagi would like, good looking, nice, smart, entertaining, and from what he could tell funny. Now the question was why they were hiding this from one another.

Umino let out a sigh, things were much to complicated for his taste. "Usagi, can you please admit the truth? I'm a bit tired of arguing with you now."

"Well, stop arguing with me then. I'm not going to admit anything," Usagi replied, with a huff.

Umino straightened and directed a clear, dark look towards his childhood friend. "You are going to sit there and lie to me, saying that you don't like someone you clearly do like?"

Usagi shrank away from his gaze, "no," she mumbled.

"Good, now explain…please?"

"Umino…I don't like him," Usagi insisted, not looking at Umino. He merely let out an exasperated sigh.

"Fine, then don't admit it. But I'm going to say one last thing," Usagi glanced up at him, curiosity written on her face. "It'll come out eventually," was all he said.

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"What's going on?" Motoki asked, as he again craned his neck to peer into the window, above Makoto's head.

"They're talking," she whispered, as she squinted a bit. "Why exactly do café's have to have foggy windows?" She asked. It was quite annoying to strain your eyes in an attempt to find two people, possibly having an important conversation.

"It's a coffee shop, what do you expect? Besides, you're the one who didn't want to go in," Motoki pointed out.

Makoto stiffened, "well, sorry, but if we'd have gone in they would have seen us, and we'd have nothing."

"But…we don't have anything."

"Yet, besides we haven't gotten caught," Makoto replied.

Motoki nodded agreeably to the point. He didn't want to think of the consequences if Usagi happened to catch them snooping along behind her.

"Okay, then how do we figure out what they're saying?" Motoki asked, "I mean we can't properly hear them, since their all the way across the room."

Makoto didn't have an answer, frankly she was more concerned with what Usagi was doing, rather than what she was saying. It was quite obvious that the boy she was with was Umino-kun, although he looked rather different, he had the same mannerisms and it was easy to pick up on.

"We just need to keep an eye on them, it's not all that necessary to be so nosy, and listen to what they're saying," Makoto said.

Motoki gave her a penetrating stare under which she blushed. "You do realize that that was a complete lie, right?"

Makoto blushed, and turned away refusing to meet his eyes, while he stood and laughed at her distress. "Stop laughing," she managed to choke out.

He managed to stop his laughter, and regained his composure seconds later, while she glared at him balefully. "Aw, don't be mad Mako-chan," he said.

Makoto blushed crimson, unable to control the surge of warm blood to her cheeks. As she heard him call her 'Mako-chan'.

"What?" he asked.

"N-Nothing," Makoto answered.

Motoki turned his back, oblivious to Makoto's slight discomfort. "They're still talking," he whispered. "But I can't tell what their saying."

"Lip read," Makoto suggested, still trying to cool her face, and patting her cheeks apprehensively, rather confused as to why she was reacting in such a way.

"Uhm, I'm a guy, I don't lip read," he answered.

"So I'm supposed to lip read, because I'm a girl?" Makoto asked, surprised to hear any such stereotype existed.

Motoki shrugged, "Unazuki can do it," he said, as though it explained everything.

It didn't. "Okay, maybe we could try going in, stealthily of course," Makoto suggested.

Motoki pouted, his eyes narrowing to the size of small buttons, "you just decided that would be a logical thing to do?"

Makoto sniffed, and nodded sagely. She reached to the door, but Motoki held it back, she glanced up at him confusedly.

She felt her breath catch in her throat, as she stared up at his dark green orbs. "We shouldn't go in together," he said, pulling away from her, unaware of Makoto's breathlessness.

"We'll be more inconspicuous if we go in separately," he said.

"I'll go in first and then-" he was cut off by a light ringing.

"Wha-"

Makoto glanced down at her wrist, and the blue insignia on the 'watch-like' contraption was glowing.

"Oh, no," she murmured. "I have to go," Makoto said, and took off running.

"Wait! Mako-chan!" Motoki called after her, however she continued on.

Motoki let out a sigh, and turned to the door, and just as he reached for the handle the door flew open, knocking him back. He glanced up confusedly and only caught sight of two blond pigtails hurrying off behind Makoto.

"This can't be normal," was all he said, rubbing his head, tenderly.

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"Ooooh, What do you think of this one?" Raku asked, shoving an olive colored shoe under Mamoru's nose for his inspection.

"It's…nice?" he said, unable to come up with a proper adjective to describe how repulsive the color seemed to him.

"You like it? I'll take these then," she proclaimed and turned quickly to find the shoes in her size.

Mamoru had been stuck in the store for nearly twenty minutes, and honestly the experience could only be described as hellish. He had no idea, why he was still standing in the store talking to his overly excited classmate.

He glanced at his watch, he'd kept her company for nearly an hour and a half, clearly it was acceptable for him to excuse himself and head for the exit, right?

But then again, Mamoru was a bit foreign to the concept of what was socially exceptable, but thinking back on the last twenty minutes, he was willing to look impolite, if only to get out of the mall and head back to his home and find some comfort in a good book and a nice cup of coffee.

With the thought in his mind, he turned to Raku and readied himself for the excuse he was going to come up with, when he suddenly felt a jolt in his chest.

The jolt was followed by a long tremor that ran up his spine, and caused his heart to beat erratically. It could only mean one thing, Sailor Moon was out there, and she needed him.

"Raku-san," he gasped.

The girl turned to him, and stared concernedly, "Are you alright?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah, listen I really have to go, I just remembered I had to do something, I'll see you later," he manged to choke out, and ran out of the store, leaving a dumbfounded Raku.

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**A/N:** Hope you liked it!

As I said, I worked pretty hard on this chapter, and I'd really appreciate any feedback possible, so please leave a review.

Responses

_**Lexybug07**_- Thanks a lot for the review, and I guess that's true, I actually had a lot of fun writing that chapter, I had that last scene playing in my head a lot. :)

_**SerenityMoonGodness**_- Heh, you are so right, Mamoru's been pretty jealous the last few chapters, which I decided wasn't all that fair to the poor guy, so for this chapter I tried for a few Usagi moments, I'll definitely try to include few more in the next few chapters!

_**KageNoNeko**_- It does seem that way for now, but just keep in mind, this whole idea of Motoki's was kind of spur of the moment, and well let's just stay there are a few surprises in store for him. :)

_**Girls Of Darkness-**_ Well, I'm sorry for the lack of Makoto in the last chapter, but hopefully this chapter was to your liking, as it had both Makoto and Motoki in it. And thanks for the Umino comment, I really always loved his character, I thought he was adorable, so I wanted him to play a role in the story, I'm glad you liked it.

_**Celeste-Love-**_ Ah, so you liked his 'monologue' as I've taken to calling it, yes, well that was bit hard to write, I had to re-write that particular part twice before I was even a bit satisfied with it. As to Umino not being a good candidate for jealousy, I think I disagree. Mostly because from what I've found of Mamoru I thought he would be jealous of anybody who was close to Usgai, I thought Umino was perfect because, yes he may not be the most dashing young man, he's still quite close to Usagi, and it's for that fact alone that I thought Mamoru would be more prone to jealousy if Umino's the stand in. Anyway thanks alot for the review :)


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